LIBRARY 

UNIVfMITV  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIEGO 


The  Latchstring 


THE    REAL    BOLD    COASTS   OF   THE    ATLANTIC 


-7 


The  Latchstring 


TO 


MAINE  WOODS  AND  WATERS 


BY  WALTER  EMERSON 


With  Illustrations 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


1916 


COPYRIGHT,    1916,   BY  WALTER  C.   EMEKSON 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  May  tqib 


By  Way  of  Preface 

MAINE  is  a  mosaic  of  bright  spots  in  life,  in- 
laid with  more  genuine,  worth-while,  health- 
giving  pleasure  places  than  any  other  State  in 
the  Union,  and  framed  between  the  most  pic- 
turesque mountain  range  in  eastern  America 
and  a  seacoast,  in  beauty  and  utility,  unequaled 
in  any  country  in  the  world. 

That  is  a  long  sentence  and  bears  some  re- 
semblance to  the  habitual  exaggeration  of  an 
enthusiast.  But  it  will  stand  analysis.  And  if 
you  will  but  come  here  with  eyes  open,  and  a 
mind  prepared  for  impression,  you  will  criticize 
its  awkward  length,  perchance,  but  not  its 
statement. 

The  precarious  calling  of  politics  in  the  last 
twenty  years  has  taken  me  many  times  into 
every  county  of  the  State,  and  into  hundreds  of 
its  towns.  And  since  the  average  common  sense 
of  all  the  people,  as  Mr.  Reed  used  to  call  it, 
can  always  be  trusted  to  express  itself  at  the 


By  Way  of  Preface 

polls,  I  have  invariably  had  time  after  election, 
not  only  to  consider  how  it  happened,  but  to 
appreciate  what  I  had  seen. 

There  are  many  who  could  depict  better,  but 
few  who  have  seen  more.  I  have  written  herein, 
not  history,  for  that  remains  for  the  future,  and 
it  should  not  be  far  off.  All  of  the  accredited 
historians  of  Maine  cut  us  off  years  ago  at  a 
point  where  struggle  ended  and  development 
began.  The  ancient  dominions  have  been  often 
done,  and  well  done,  the  modern  Common- 
wealth not  at  all.  What  is  needed  is  a  con- 
nected, textbook  story  from  the  beginnings  to 
the  present  year  of  Maine  grace.  This  is  be- 
hest, not  a  threat.  Not  description  herein.  The 
photographer  has  done  so  much  better.  Nor 
literature.  I  have  simply  loitered  through  parts 
of  the  State  and  pointed  here  and  there  to  some 
of  its  realities  and  possibilities,  in  the  hope  that 
others  may  see  us  as  some  of  us  who  appreciate 
see  ourselves. 

Maine  is  in  the  making  quite  as  much  as  any 
new  and  far-off  Western  State.  We  have  idled 
[vi] 


By  Way  of  Preface 

—  too  much  —  and  grown  not  enough.  Initia- 
tive and  courage  among  our  own  people  have 
been  too  conspicuously  absent.  The  scarecrow 
of  taxes  is  in  every  field  and  the  six-per-cent 
motto  on  every  wall.  We  have  stared  at  op- 
portunity and  let  it  pass.  But  as  sure  as  to- 
morrow's sun  the  awakening  is  at  hand.  For 
you  cannot  cover  up,  and  keep  covered  up, 
mines  of  health  and  wealth  when  once  dis- 
covered. 

And  because  these  mines  are  richer,  and 
deeper,  and  more  accessible  than  any  others  of 
their  like,  the  world  is  making  a  beaten  path 
to  the  door.  The  latchstring  is  out. 

WALTER  EMERSON. 

PORTLAND,  MAINE, 
May  i,  1916. 


Contents 

I.  EASTWARD  HO!    .            .  .           .               I 

II.  THE  OPEN  DOOR        .            .  .            -15 

III.  AND  THIS  WAS  MAINE  .            .             36 

IV.  KITTERY  TO  SAIL  ROCK    .  .            -44 
V.  THE  GAME-FISH  PEERAGE  .            .             76 

VI.  SHOTGUN  AND  RIFLE         .  .           .114 

VII.  CAMP  AND  CANOE           .  .            .          140 

VIII.  FOREST,  FIELD,  AND  FACTORY  .    179 

IX.  BY  WAY  OF  CONCLUSION  .           .          2O3 


Illustrations 


The  Real  Bold  Coasts  of  the  Atlantic  .      .  Frontispiece 

Two  Kinds  of  Summer  Life  .       .      .   '  .      .      .  4 

Banked  on  the  Northwest .8 

Bounded  on  the  Southeast 12 

Big  Nature,  Silent,  Inspiring 16 

" In  celebration  of  a  good  crop" 20 

Last  of  the  Covered  Toll-Bridges 26 

Lewiston  Falls:  Type  of  Developed  Power        .       .  30 

Ripogenus  Gorge:  Undeveloped 34 

"Sailing  with  the  International  Brotherhood"         .  40 

A  Disappearing  Rig 44 

The  Scarboro  Marshes 50 

A  Seiner  on  the  Maine  Coast 54 

In  Quiet,  Quaint  Wiscasset 58 

Monhegan's  Great  Industry    ......  62 

Monhegan's  Great  White  Way 62 

Coast-Line  Contrasts 66 

A  Southern  Senator's  Northern  Home        ...  7° 

Bar  Harbor,  where  Art  dares  play  with  Nature      .  72 

Sail  Rock,  Tip  End  of  the  United  States   ...  74 

Boothbay  Harbor,  Refuge  from  every  Storm      .       .  80 

Maine  Trout 80 

The  Fighting  Land-Locked  Salmon     ....  80 


Illustrations 


Bass-Fishing  at  Belgrade 84 

"As  for  me,  kind  sir,  a  musical  brook"     ...  86 

Frye  Lodge  at  Rangeley 94 

Echo  Bay  and  Little  Kineo,  Moosehead  Lake  .       .  98 

Moosehead  in  Angry  Mood 104 

Roads  like  this  to  the  Hunting  Regions      .      .      .  1 14 

The  Old-Time  Stump  Fence 122 

Maine  Moose  Swimming  a  Lake 132 

Camps  like  this  all  over  Maine 142 

Virgin  Waters  in  Virgin  Forests 148 

Lunch  at  an  Old  Logging-Camp 156 

The  Gardiner  Mansion,  in  Gardiner,  built  in  1754.  164 
Canoe  Trips  like  this  on  the  Penobscot      .       .       .168 

Type  of  Abandoned  Farm 1 80 

An  Aroostook  Potato-Field  in  Blossom      .      .      .186 

Made  in  Maine:  The  Reid,  Fastest  Vessel  in  the 

United  States  Navy 190 

The  Rapids  of  Grand  Lake  Stream     ....  194 

Montreal  Melons  in  Maine 200 

The  County  Fair  Pulling-Match 208 

Fort  Knox,  on  the  Lower  Penobscot     .       .       .       .216 

Ice-Racing  on  a  Maine  Lake 222 

All  Kinds  of  Winter  Sports  at  Poland      .      .      .  226 


The  Latchstring 


The  Latchstring 


EASTWARD  HO! 

LOYALTY  to  locality,  like  necessity,  is  often 
the  mother  of  invention.  National,  state,  and 
municipal  pride  often  —  too  often,  perhaps  — 
beget  superlatives.  Too  much  invention,  es- 
pecially of  superlatives,  smacks  of  bombast  and 
leads  the  offspring  of  loyalty  and  pride  to 
trouble.  Meaning  by  this  incipient  bit  of  philos- 
ophizing —  if  that  is  what  you  call  it  —  that, 
while  I  have  great  and  everlasting  pride  in  my 
State,  I  shall  try  to  avoid  the  magniloquence 
of  the  man  with  the  megaphone.  My  endeavor 
shall  be  to  guide  you  through  Maine  and  let 
you  see,  and  hear,  and  smell,  and  taste  for 
yourself.  If  I  can  do  this,  and  keep  the  tempta- 
tion to  boast  within  me,  I  have  no  fear  of  the 
result.  You  will  come  again. 


The  Latchstring 


A  citizen  of  Chicago  not  long  ago  escorted  a 
distinguished  French  traveler  and  essayist  from 
New  York  to  that  great  and  interesting  cave  of 
the  winds.  On  the  way,  doubtless  over  the 
coffee  and  cigars  of  a  Twentieth-Century  din- 
ner, the  successful,  opulent,  and  always  genial 
cave  dweller  lost  no  opportunity  to  blow. 

"Why,  man  alive,  the  day  you  were  born, 
Chicago  was  n't  even  a  chicken  farm.  Now 
look  at  her.  She's  the  biggest,  best,  and  busi- 
est metropolis  in  all  the  world.  In  a  generation, 
my  man,  —  a  generation."  And  then,  as  they 
shot  the  streets  of  Syracuse:  "In  that  time  we 
have  had  the  biggest  fire  ever  known,  and  we 
built  her  up  again  —  built  her  up  bigger  and 
better  than  before." 

At  Buffalo  there  was  something  about  the 
tallest  buildings  and  quickest  elevators.  At 
Cleveland  he  awoke  the  tired  Frenchman  to 
tell  him  about  the  biggest  drainage  canal  that 
science  ever  imagined.  "Makes  your  Victor 
Hugo's  sewer  pipe  look  like  a  cambric  needle." 
At  South  Bend,  over  the  waffles  and  Vermont 

[2] 


Eastward  Ho  ! 

maple  syrup,  there  was  more  about  the  longest 
street  in  the  world. 

Now  the  foreigner,  refreshed  as  much  as  pos- 
sible in  one  of  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett's  bouncing 
berths,  ventured  a  word  himself. 

"Ah,  but  you  Americans,"  he  said,  —  "you 
Americans  who  *  match  with  destiny  for  beers' 
—  you  boast  so  much." 

"Boast!  why,  we  Chicagoans  never  boast  — 


never." 


But  the  Frenchman  protested,  and  not  only 
protested,  but  wagered,  that  he  would  not  be 
in  Chicago  thirty  minutes  before  some  other 
breezy  Westerner,  whom  he  had  never  seen  be- 
fore, would  boast,  and  twice  boast. 

As  they  were  taking  a  cab  at  the  station  he 
was  introduced  by  his  escort  to  a  prominent 
fellow  citizen. 

"Glad  to  meet  you,  sir.  I  claim  you  for  to- 
morrow morning  at  ten.  Will  call  in  my  car. 
Take  you  to  the  stockyards,  sir.  Biggest  in  the 
world." 

As  they  were  registering  at  the  club,  exactly 
[3  1 


"The  Latchstring 

sixteen  minutes  after  the  arrival  of  the  train, 
he  met  another  fellow  citizen. 

"Glad  to  know  you,  sir.  First  time  in  Chi- 
cago, eh?  Well,  well.  Come  with  me  for  a  spin 
along  the  avenue.  Greatest  boulevard  in  the 
world.  Of  course,  you  have  your  Mediterranean 
shores,  and  Nice,  and  all  that,  but  no  city  in  the 
world  has  any  water-front  like  this.  Here,  boy, 
bring  us  one  of  those  longest  cigars.  Can't  buy 
'em  in  any  other  town  on  the  globe." 

The  French  traveler  and  essayist  looked  at 
his  watch  and  then  at  his  escort. 
*  "Ah,  my  friend,  you  see  I  win.  I  have  no 
doubt  I  shall  like  your  biggest  city,  and  your 
largest  sewer,  and  your  longest  street,  and  your 
greatest  stockyards.  But  not  so  fast,  not  so 
fast.  I  would  much  rather  you  would  let  them 
—  what  you  call  it  —  sink  in." 

And  he  viewed  Chicago  —  all  that  was  big- 
gest and  best  in  the  world  —  without  any 
speed  limit  and  with  alien  and  prejudiced  eyes. 
All  quite  human  and  according  to  the  funda- 
mentals of  psychology.  Most  of  us  like  to  dis- 


TWO    KINDS   OF   SUMMER   LIFE 


Eastward  Ho  ! 

cover  some  of  the  biggest  things  for  ourselves, 
and  when  we  do,  they  are  just  about  the  big- 
gest that  ever  were,  and  more  lasting  in  im- 
pression. 

Therefore,  come  with  me.  Let  Maine  sink 
in.  You,  gentle  traveler,  will  supply  the  super- 
latives. Use  them  to  your  heart's  content  and 
I  shall  delight  to  hear  them. 

You  will  be  struck  first  of  all  with  the  na- 
turalness of  the  people  and  their  environment. 
There  is  not  much  of  the  made-to-order  in 
Maine,  but  a  great  deal  of  the  made-by-nature. 
This  impression  comes  upon  you  from  one  end 
of  the  State  to  the  other,  in  all  the  seasons,  from 
its  remarkable  coast-line,  its  lakes  and  moun- 
tains, its  rapid  rivers,  streams,  and  brooks,  from 
all  the  infinite  variety  of  its  scenery.  There 
has  been  a  disposition  to  let  Nature  take  her 
course  for  one  reason  and  another.  Probably 
our  Chicago  friend  would  say  from  lack  of  en- 
terprise, just  as  he  would  say  of  Venice,  that 
"she  is  lacking  in  public  spirit  because  she  ain't 
had  any  kind  of  a  boom  in  a  hundred  years." 
[5  1 


The  Latchstring 


Go  up  into  the  hunting  and  fishing  wilder- 
ness to-day  and  you  will  find  the  same  condi- 
tions and  customs,  and  all  the  primitive  charm, 
described  so  minutely  by  Thoreau  and  by  the 
other  pioneer  tourists  of  sixty  and  seventy 
years  ago.  Quite  true,  instead  of  the  remains  of 
an  Indian  camp,  ashes,  cow-moose  skull,  and 
hornstone  arrowhead,  you  may  now  and  then 
run  into  a  limousine  or  a  white  tiled  bath.  But 
ten  rods  away  and  you  are  in  the  wilds  again, 
and  fish,  and  game,  and  solitude  are  yours. 
Nature  is  all  about  you  everywhere.  It  sinks  in 
with  its  quieting  influence,  and  noise  and  nerves 
are  no  more.  Where  better  can  a  man  get  his 
money  and  his  neurasthenia  away  from  the 
possibilities  of  panic,  and  wars,  and  rumors  of 
wars,  than  here?  And  even  as  a  matter  of 
business,  what  pleasanter  or  safer  harbor  for 
the  sincere  capitalist  in  all  kinds  of  financial 
weather,  fair  to  foul?  It  is  the  recreation  State 
of  the  nation,  and  that  is  business  and  pleasure 
combined.  The  State  that  catches  first  the 
gentle  breezes  of  prosperity,  just  as  it  catches 

[6] 


Eastward  Ho  ! 

first  the  sunlight;  the  State  that  is  shaken  last 
by  stress  of  financial  gale  because  Nature  has 
placed  it  on  solid  rock.  More  than  this,  Na- 
ture is  our  only  partner  and  down  in  Maine 
there  is  no  bottom  to  Nature's  pocket.  Still 
more  than  this,  the  most  generous  partner  in 
all  the  world,  for  does  she  not  furnish  all  the 
capital  and  give  to  us  all  the  dividends  ? 

Maine  is  more  than  a  State  of  potentialities, 
it  is  one  of  vivid  realities.  It  arrived  centuries 
ago  and  is  still  here.  And  here  it  ever  will  be, 
with  its  one  great  asset  undisturbed  by  fluc- 
tuations in  Wall  Street,  independent  of  the  legis- 
lation of  a  great  nation,  unaffected  by  the  rise 
or  fall  of  any  party.  A  stock-ticker  would  look 
very  strange  on  the  shores  of  Parmachene, 
and  no  election  can  ever  take  the  tonic  out  of 
the  salt  sea  air.  Give  me  a  humble  worm  and 
a  shady  pool,  or  a  fair  breeze  with  everything 
set,  and  I  count  the  rest  of  the  world  well  lost. 

Those  of  us  who  have  remained  at  home  and 
grown  up  with  these  realities  have  often  failed 
to  appreciate  their  full  value.  A  lake,  or  a  hill, 
[7] 


The  Latchstring 


or  a  beautiful  valley,  or  a  bay,  or  a  harbor,  like 
a  prophet,  is  not  without  honor  save  in  its  own 
country,  and  he  who  goes  away,  even  for  a  few 
months,  gets  a  perspective  of  his  State,  swells 
with  pride,  gets  homesick,  and  calls  for  the 
time-table.  When  we  were  boys  we  used  to 
fish  some  brook  or  pond,  or  shoot  some  cover 
or  piece  of  woods,  all  unconscious  of  its  beauty, 
never  dreaming  that  it  contained  health  and 
rest.  Go  away,  and  you  come  back  in  manhood 
to  find  a  chain  of  lakes  and  forests,  not  only 
with  health  and  rest,  but  with  real  revenue- 
producing  capital.  When  we  were  boys  we 
shot  in  and  out  of  harbors  and  bays  innumer- 
able in  dories,  and  catboats,  and  sloops,  with 
never  a  thought  of  what  they  possessed.  Now 
the  welcome  summer  visitor  has  marked  them 
forjiis  own.  When  we  were  boys  we  sat  idly 
by  and  watched  the  rivers  rush  on  unharnessed 
to  the  sea.  Now  they  turn  millions  in  machin- 
ery, move  our  cars,  light,  and  will  sometime 
heat,  our  houses.  Some  expert  figured  out  the 
other  day  that  the  millions  of  horse-power  in 
[81 


Eastward  Ho  ! 

the  rivers  and  streams  of  Maine  were  more 
valuable  than  the  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania. 
They  can  turn  every  wheel  in  New  England  and 
furnish  the  motive  power  for  every  railroad. 
And  the  end  is  not  only  not  yet,  but  is  uncal- 
culated.  We  are  now  capitalizing  snowstorms 
in  Maine,  and  winter  visitors  are  coming  for 
winter  sports. 

You  will  next  be  struck  with  the  cleanness 
and  freshness  of  it  all.  Once  here  there  is  a 
sort  of  well-I-breathe-again  feeling,  and  your 
desire  is  to  do  something  and  do  it  right  away. 
Of  course,  those  of  us  who  were  born  here  and 
grew  up  with  the  State  and  its  wonderful  cli- 
mate —  that  is,  some  of  us  —  get  indolent, 
inactive,  and  lazy  just  the  same  as  any  one 
else.  Human  nature  operates  much  the  same 
in  the  long  run  at  Molunkus  and  at  the  corner 
of  Forty-second  Street  and  Broadway.  But 
if  you  come  from  New  York,  or  Philadelphia, 
or  especially  from  Chicago  or  Pittsburg,  all 
the  way  down  to  Molunkus,  or  Wytopitlock, 
or  Chesuncook,  you  will  get  the  full  effect  of 


The  Latchstring 

a  decidedly  changed  atmosphere  full  of  one 
hundred  per  cent  efficiency.  And  may  I  also 
suggest,  the  actual  existence  of  unsmooched 
white  houses  and  clean  lace  curtains  will  both 
surprise  and  refresh. 

Although  indigenous  to  the  soil,  many  times 
have  I  caught  the  visitor's  feeling  going  down 
East.  A  day  of  travel  through  the  eastern  part 
of  the  Middle  West,  Pennsylvania  and  New 
Jersey,  with  their  dark-brown,  lonely,  hard- 
wood trees,  with  their  barren-looking  red  soil 
and  smoky  back  doors,  a  rather  stuffy  night 
on  the  train,  and  then  a  glide  from  Portland 
down  through  the  fresh  Maine  morning  air  — 
if  you  will  but  open  the  windows  —  in  and  out 
of  evergreen  groves,  across  clean  fields  and  clear 
and  swiftly  running  streams,  among  the  well- 
kept  houses  of  village  and  farm,  always  white 
with  their  cool,  dark-green  blinds;  and  then 
some  camp  or  hotel,  inland  or  on  the  rugged 
and  picturesque  coast,  —  this,  and  who  can 
say  that  you  have  not  entered  a  new  life  in  a 
new  world?  Yours  —  all  yours  —  but  for  the 
[10] 


Eastward  Ho! 

inclination,  the  slightest  of  efforts,  and  a  modest 
price. 

We  did  this  by  way  of  Boston  before  the 
Maine  trains  came  on  direct  from  New  York. 
And  had  I  all  the  money  that  has  already  been 
spent  in  this  useless  war,  I  would  still  have 
ignored  the  cabs  and  have  taken  the  Elevated 
from  the  South  to  the  North  Station  just  to 
catch  that  glimpse  of  salty  T  Wharf  with  its 
smacks,  and  bankers,  and  seiners,  now  lazy  in 
the  morning  sun,  but  full  of  the  real  romance 
of  the  deep.  I  'd  like  to  see  Jim  Connolly  again, 
just  to  tell  him  how  much  he  has  helped  me 
while  waiting  for  trains  out  in  Crawfordsville, 
Indiana.  The  merest  glimpse  do  you  get  of 
this  hardy  sailoring,  but  it  puts  you  on  edge 
for  Maine,  and  you  wish  you  had  taken  the 
8  o'clock  instead  of  the  8.55.  Not  the  least  of 
your  comforts  is  a  fresh,  clean  train  to  carry 
you  across  the  corner  of  New  Hampshire,  and 
then  home. 

This  little  journey  is  quite  as  satisfactory 
—  to  many  more  so  —  if  taken  in  the  winter, 


The  Latchstring 


for  then  the  delight  of  the  contrast  is  all  the 
greater.  The  sociable  and  cozy  pines  and 
spruces  stand  out  against  the  snowy  hills  in 
fine  relief,  and  there  is  an  invitation  all  its 
own  in  the  wood-fire  smoke  curling  from  the 
chimneys. 

Up  on  the  Western  Promenade  in  staid, 
sedate,  and  delightful  old  Portland,  stands  a 
little  cast-iron  negro  boy  whose  slavery  was 
unaffected  by  Lincoln's  Proclamation.  Before 
the  war,  and  night  and  day  since  the  war,  he 
has  served  his  masters  in  the  capacity  of  hitch- 
ing-post  on  the  curb  in  front  of  one  of  Maine's 
finest  residences,  not  far  from  the  statue  of  the 
great  Reed.  I  remember,  years  ago,  seeing  a 
little  Southern  child,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
North,  and  far  away  from  home,  run  up  and 
kiss  the  shining  iron  cheek,  a  rather  touching 
scene  of  childish  ecstasy  and  loyalty.  I  have 
much  the  same  feeling  for  any  scrubby  little 
spruce,  wherever  and  whenever  I  find  it. 

Banked  on  the  northwest  by  that  magnifi- 
cent Presidential  Range,  snow-tipped  from 
[  12] 


Eastward  Ho  ! 

early  October  to  May,  bounded  on  the  south- 
east by  the  deep,  cool  waters  of  the  Atlantic, 
Maine  has  the  most  stimulating  climate  of  any 
State  in  the  Union.  One  can  see  Mount  Wash- 
ington from  some  point  in  half  the  towns  of 
the  State.  Sir  George  Weymouth,  and  other 
early  voyagers  to  the  Maine  coast  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  speak  in  their  records  of  see- 
ing these  mountains  from  Monhegan.  Mem- 
bers of  the  Maine  Historical  Society  were  in 
debate  many  years  as  to  whether  or  not  they 
could  really  have  seen  the  White  Mountains 
from  this  island  so  far  out  at  sea,  quite  a  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  nearest  peak  as  the  bird  flies. 
Finally,  Dr.  Henry  S.  Burrage,  an  officer  of 
the  Society,  went  to  Monhegan,  and,  waiting 
for  an  exceptionally  clear  day,  saw  Mount 
Washington  without  the  aid  of  a  glass,  verified 
the  ancient  records,  and  settled  the  dispute. 

On  the  other  hand,  from  the  hills  in  many 
towns  far  back  from  the  coast-line  one  can  get 
glimpses  of  the  ocean,  and  wherever  you  are 
in  the  State  you  always  feel  the  near  presence 


"The  Latchstring 

of  mountain  and  sea.  Besides  the  tonic  of  the 
air,  there  is  a  rest-giving  effect  in  all  this  that 
brings  health  to  body  and  brain,  peace  and 
pleasure  to  the  senses. 

And  here  have  I,  boasting  I  ne'er  would 
boast,  boasted. 


II 

THE  OPEN  DOOR 

MORE  than  seventy  years  ago,  people  came 
here  for  recreation  and  rest.  There  seems  to  be 
no  accurate  account  of  the  real  beginnings  of 
the  resort  industry  in  Maine  —  now  the  great- 
est in  the  State.  Thoreau  was  doubtless  the 
first  of  those  mentioned  in  the  "society  col- 
umn" as  prominent  people  "summering"  in 
Maine.  And  so  we  might  call  him  the  pioneer 
of  some  five  hundred  thousand  visitors  who 
now  not  only  summer  here,  but  spring,  fall,  and 
winter  here  as  well.  "On  the  3ist  of  August, 
1846,  I  left  Concord  in  Massachusetts,  for 
Bangor,  and  the  backwoods  of  Maine."  This 
was  the  trip  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Katahdin, 
the  tip-top  of  the  State,  and  he  came  for  mild 
adventure,  nature  studies,  and  recreation.  At 
least  he  may  be  called  the  first  regular  "re- 
sorter,"  for  he  came  again  in  1853,  canoeing  the 
[  IS  ] 


Latchstring 


lakes  and  streams  north  of  Moosehead,  and 
again  in  1857,  to  the  Allegash.  But  even  he 
speaks  of  "tourists"  who  had  preceded  him, 
and  among  his  discoveries  was  a  well-ordered 
hotel  at  Mount  Kineo,  though  he  fails  to  men- 
tion such  modern  conveniences  as  electric 
curling-irons  and  house  detectives. 

People  in  New  England  began  their  "tour- 
ing" by  making  short  trips  to  the  White 
Mountains,  in  the  early  days  called  the  "White 
Hills,"  and  to  the  "shore"  for  fish  dinners. 
These  became  annual  migrations  among  the 
wealthy  and  well-to-do  in  the  fifties  and  six- 
ties, and  out  of  these  grew  the  summer  cottage 
and  hotel  life,  now  so  extensive  and  charming 
in  Maine.  I  well  remember  with  what  child- 
ish interest  and  awe  and  great  curiosity  we 
looked  on  the  people  who  came  from  other 
States  merely  for  pleasure.  Us  boys  —  I  must 
say  "us  boys"  just  once  more  —  us  boys 
especially  could  not  understand  it;  for  pleasure 
was  to  be  found,  not  by  such  a  dull  thing  as  a 
brook  or  a  pond,  but  in  Washington  Street  and 
[  16  1 


BIG    NATURE,    SILENT,    INSPIRING 


The  Open  Door 


Broadway,  known  to  us  only  by  tradition  and 
rumor. 

One  joyous  summer  spent  in  the  little  town 
of  Salem,  in  Franklin  County,  in  Uncle  Rufus 
Blake's  fine  old  brick  farmhouse,  right  at  the 
foot  of  three-peaked  Mount  Abraham,  stands 
out  in  bold  relief  in  the  memories  of  bovhood. 

9 

The  great  event  of  that  season  was  a  trip  up 
old  Abraham,  and  a  night  spent  on  the  highest 
peak.  All  the  neighbors  and  their  visitors  were 
invited,  and  fifty  or  sixty  care-free,  shouting 
children,  old  and  young,  made  up  the  expedi- 
tion, undertaken,  of  course,  just  after  haying, 
as  a  sort  of  celebration  of  a  good  crop,  and  a 
bit  of  outing  for  the  tired  harvester.  Although 
it  was  midsummer,  we  all  slept  on  pine  and 
spruce  boughs,  in  a  circle  about  an  immense 
bonfire,  which,  they  afterwards  told  us,  could 
be  seen  in  towns  for  miles  around.  There  were 
no  nights  in  Arabia  like  this  —  of  course.  It 
was  all  so  weird  and  wonderful.  Such  songs, 
and  helloings,  such  stories  of  bears,  and  moose, 
and  wolves.  And  one  of  the  older  men,  not  to 


The  Latchstring 


be  outdone,  drew  on  his  imagination  for  a 
cougar  —  pronounced  cow-jer,  if  you  please, 
—  yes,  sir,  cozv-jer,  he  knew  —  which  he  had 
seen  just  beyond  that  big  boulder  down  on 
the  number  two  level.  And  such  a  supper  and 
breakfast,  with  hot  coffee  made  over  the  coals, 
and  raspberries  picked  on  the  way,  and  flap- 
jacks made  by  Aunt  Amy,  with  honey;  and  then 
that  Washington  pie  —  those  Washington  pies 
rather  —  brought  by  the  Dud  Briggses  from 
over  across  the  stream!  Ah,  that  was  many 
years  ago,  and  much  has  happened,  but  the 
vivid  memory  of  that  Washington  pie  —  those 
Washington  pies  rather  —  lingered  long  after 
the  first  skates  were  forgotten.  There  was 
much  to  interest  a  small  boy,  and  sink  in,  on 
that  eventful  night.  I  had  never  before  slept 
under  the  stars,  and  everything  impressed  me 
because  I  was  for  the  first  time  in  the  com- 
plete environment  of  big  Nature,  silent,  ex- 
pansive, inspiring.  But  in  the  final  analysis, 
which  I  was  compelled  to  make  under  inquisi- 
tion at  home,  I  found  I  had  been  most  deeply 
[  18] 


"The  Open  Door 


impressed  by  the  sight  of  summer  boarders 
from  a  neighboring  State,  who  had  come  down 
to  Maine  for  a  vacation,  and  made  up  part  of 
the  mountain  party.  For  weeks  afterwards  I 
made  every  excuse  to  go  over  to  the  boarding- 
house,  the  pioneer  resort  of  the  region,  just  to 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  visitors,  and  some  idea 
of  the  customs,  dress,  thoughts,  and  general 
atmosphere  of  folks  who  had  come  from  far 
away  —  Massachusetts.  And  I  was  not  un- 
like other  boys.  At  first  we  laughed  —  a  little 
—  at  them.  Then  they  laughed  at  us.  Now, 
when  they  come  to  Maine  —  half  a  million  of 
them  every  year  —  we  laugh  together  at  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

The  shore  houses  and  small  hotels  along 
the  gentle  and  picturesque  water-front  of  York 
County,  from  the  ancient  town  of  York  down 
to  Pine  Point,  were  among  the  first  in  Maine 
to  take  "regular  summer  boarders"  from  other 
States.  In  the  interior,  the  hill  and  lake  region, 
the  hotel  at  Poland  Springs  was  the  first  to  go 
into  the  resort  industry  on  an  extensive  scale. 


The  Latchstring 


But  the  hanging  sign  of  "  Wentworth  Ricker, 
1797"  swung  to  the  winds  and  rains  and  snows 
for  more  than  half  a  century  before  the  tourist 
finally  supplanted  the  stage  traveler.  Then  it 
was  that  Grandfather  Ricker]  found  health 
properties  in  the  spring  down  on  the  side  of 
the  hill,  advertised  it  in  the  weekly  papers, 
sent  the  water  away  in  barrels,  and  money, 
boarders,  and  fame  came  back.  The  best  exam- 
ple I  know  of  preaching  a  better  sermon,  writ- 
ing a  better  book,  or  building  a  better  mouse- 
trap than  your  neighbor,  and  having  the  world 
make  a  beaten  path  to  your  door,  though  you 
have  built  your  house  in  the  woods  — "and  on 
a  hill.  The  same  philosophy  applies  to  spring 
water  and  country  sausages,  i 

'Just  before  this  an  important  international 
sporting  event  took  place,  which  in  New  Eng- 
land attracted .  attention  to  the  western  part  of 
Maine,  and  especially  to  the  country  hotels. 
And  you  never  knew  of  the  great  post-road  race 
from  Portland  to  Montreal,  with  the  sacred 
English  mail?  Well,  listen,  my  children,  and 

[20] 


The  Open  Door 


you  shall  hear  of  the  midnight,  and  midday, 
ride  of  Hobbs,  and  Bodge,  and  Waterhouse  — 
good,  old-fashioned  Maine  names,  and  good, 
old-fashioned  Maine  stage-drivers  who  did 
things.  I  cannot  find  that  the  story  of  this 
race  was  ever  published,  although  mention 
must  have  been  made  of  it  in  the  newspapers 
of  the  time.  I  have  picked  it  up,  fragment  by 
fragment,  from  people  now  living  along  the 
route,  who  have  heard  their  fathers  and  mothers 
tell  of  the  event,  and  one  man  I  found  who  not 
only  saw  part  of  the  great  drive,  but  took  care 
of  one  of  the  horses  —  Sewell  Brackett,  of 
Poland,  still  hale  and  hearty  at  ninety,  and  with 
memory  unimpaired.  While  everybody  whom 
I  saw  seemed  to  know  just  ( what  occurred, 
nobody  could  tell  just  when  it  occurred.  It 
was  midwinter,  sometime  in  the  forties.  That, 
at  least,  seems  to  be  established.  Mr.  Brackett, 
who  was  born  in  1825,  and  is  doubtless  the 
best  living  authority  on  the  matter,  says  he 
was  more  than  fifteen  years  old  at  the  time,  and 
is  sure  he  was  not  twenty.  By  a  process  of 
[  21  ] 


"The  Latchstring 

intricate  mathematical  deduction,  having  first 
placed  confidence  in  Uncle  Sewell's  retentive 
memory,  —  which,  of  course,  we  should,  —  we 
arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  it  was  in  the  early 
forties,  and  there  the  matter  of  date,  which, 
after  all,  is  of  inferior  concern,  must  rest. 

Then,  as  now,  the  winter  port  of  Canada 
was  in  the  States,  and  Portland  with  her  better 
and  nearer  harbor  was  beginning  to  loom  large 
as  a  rival  of  Boston,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
latter  was  the  larger  city  and  more  important 
commercial  center.  The  British  Government 
was  concerned  in  getting  the  foreign  mails  to 
Montreal  in  the  quickest  possible  time  after 
they  were  landed  by  steamer  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Boston,  as  was  Boston's  way  in 
those  days,  said,  "Why,  our  way,  of  course,  — 
up  across  New  Hampshire  and  northern  Ver- 
mont to  the  St.  Lawrence."  Portland  offered 
the  Maine  route,  —  up  through  Cumberland, 
western  Androscoggin,  and  Oxford  Counties, 
across  the  northern  wedge  of  New  Hampshire, 
then  into  the  Province  of  Quebec  to  Montreal. 
I  22] 


'The  Open  Door 


They  had  a  preliminary  trial  —  a  sort  of  scor- 
ing —  and  Boston  won.  But  this  was  because 
the  mails  were  delivered  in  Boston,  where  they 
had  a  long  start,  due  to  the  wreck  of  the  East- 
ern Railroad  train  which  carried  the  bag  to  be 
sent  by  way  of  Portland.  Then  the  Maine 
dander  was  up,  and  the  real  race  was  on.  Bear 
in  mind  that  the  transportation  was  by  good, 
old-fashioned  horse-power  along  the  established 
stage  routes.  Portland  contended  that  a  fair 
test  required  at  least  an  even  start.  So  it  was 
arranged  that  a  small  packet  should  take  the 
Maine  bag  from  the  English  steamer  somewhere 
out  in  the  Gulf  of  Maine,  southeast  of  Cape 
Elizabeth.  Then  the  steamer  was  to  proceed 
to  Boston,  and  the  grand  drive  was  to  begin 
under  conditions  more  nearly  equal. 

Great  were  the  preparations  down  here  in 
Maine.  They  went  on  for  months.  Morgan 
horses  were  obtained  wherever  possible,  and 
they  were  trained  to  the  hour.  There  were 
relays  from  three  to  five  miles,  and  in  several 
instances,  according  to  the  hills,  the  run  for 
[  23  ] 


The  Latchstring 

one  horse  was  only  two  miles.  For  weeks  all 
along  the  route  they  were  exercised  and  rubbed, 
and  rubbed  and  exercised.  No  thoroughbred 
racer  was  ever  more  carefully  prepared  for  the 
Derby.  The  expenses  of  these  preparations, 
and  the  race  itself,  were  paid  by  popular  sub- 
scriptions along  the  road,  all  the  way  from 
Portland  to  Montreal.  Everybody  had  native 
pride  in  the  affair.  All  were  interested,  many 
excited. 

Who  could  tell  then  when  an  ocean  steamer 
would  arrive  ?  All  that  was  known  on  this  side 
was  the  date  on  which  she  was  expected  to  sail. 
So  the  little  packet  tossed  outside  for  days, 
and  up  in  the  Portland  Observatory  on  Mun- 
joy  Hill  sat  a  lookout  day  and  night,  ready  to 
give  a  prearranged  signal  whenever  the  steamer 
herself,  or  the  packet  coming  in,  should  be 
sighted.  Well  down  on  Congress  Street  were  a 
pair  of  horses  and  driver,  ready  to  start  out 
along  the  route  to  notify  the  real  participants 
to  hitch  up  and  be  ready,  the  mail  had  arrived. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  were  two  or  three 
[  24] 


"The  Open  Door 


relays  of  this  notification  committee,  and  they 
reached  Paris  Hill  before  the  racers  themselves 
caught  up. 

Selected  to  make  this  historic  drive  were 
the  three  best  stage-drivers  on  the  roads  from 
Portland  to  Montreal  —  Hobbs,  and  Bodge, 
and  Waterhouse.  And  in  this  order,  for  each 
was  chosen  for  the  section  which  he  knew  best 
—  Hobbs  from  Portland  to  Gorham,  New 
Hampshire;  Bodge  from  Gorham  to  St.  Hya- 
cinthe;  and  Waterhouse  from  St.  Hyacinthe 
to  Montreal. 

Hobbs,  and  Bodge,  and  Waterhouse  —  per- 
sonages in  those  days.  Of  course  there  were 
senators  and  governors,  and  the  like,  but  they 
were  mythical,  read  about,  never  seen  in  the 
flesh.  But  stage-drivers,  —  ah,  they  were  real 
and  important!  And  likewise,  later,  the  rail- 
road conductors,  their  successors  in  the  onward 
march  of  progress.  How  well  I  remember 
Mister  Bodge  —  another  Bodge  —  and  Mister 
Barrel,  the  passenger  conductors  through  our 
town.  Big  men  these.  One  of  them  spoke  to 
[25  ] 


T*he  Latchstring 


me  once.  And  I  was  swollen  with  inordinate 
worldly  pride.  He  told  me  to  get  off  the  car 
steps.  I  got,  but  had  I  not  been  addressed  by 
a  greater  than  kings?  And  genial  Johnny 
Mace,  now  dean  of  the  main-line  men,  is  about 
the  only  connecting  link  between  the  old- 
school  conductors  and  the  new  order.  Always 
cheerful,  ever  polite  and  helpful,  it  is  a  privi- 
lege to  hand  over  to  him  your  ticket,  and  a 
lesson  in  daily  courtesy  to  see  him  assist  the 
feeble  and  inform  the  ignorant.  He  makes 
traveling  a  pleasure.  May  his  white  pink  ever 
be  fresh  and  fragrant,  and  his  shadow  never 
grow  less.  I  am  glad  of  this  bit  of  digression 
to  pay  mild  tribute  to  a  public-service  official, 
who  has  served  the  public  long,  faithfully,  and 
well. 

At  last!  The  mail  arrived.  The  signal  was 
waved  from  the  Observatory  to  the  waiting 
outrider,  who  was  soon  away,  and  Hobbs, 
with  his  Morgan  thoroughbred  and  skeleton 
sleigh,  was  in  waiting  at  what  are  now  known 
as  the  Grand  Trunk  docks.  The  mail-bag  was 
[26] 


The  Open  Door 


strapped  to  his  back,  so  that  in  case  of  acci- 
dent to  the  sleigh,  he  could  jump  on  the  horse 
and  ride  on  without  delay,  or,  should  accident 
happen  to  both  horse  and  sleigh,  he  could  run 
on  himself  to  the  next  relay.  And  away  dashed 
the  hardy  Hobbs  on  his  wild  ride,  probably 
amid  the  cheers  of  the  crowd.  Up  India  Street 
and  out  by  Allen's  Corner,  where  a  fresh  team 
awaited  him.  It  took  less  than  a  minute  to 
make  the  change,  for  along  the  road  where  the 
warnings  had  been  given,  the  horses  were  all 
harnessed  and  ready  for  the  run.  There  were 
half  a  dozen  changes  between  Portland  and 
Ricker  Hill,  Poland,  one  of  which  was  at 
Brown's  Tavern,  at  Gray  Corner,  famous 
among  the  early  stage-road  inns  of  Maine, 
kept  —  and  tradition  says  well  kept  —  by  the 
father  of  the  late  J.  B.  Brown,  who  might  him- 
self be  called  the  father  of  modern  Portland. 
The  buildings  are  still  standing.  Hobbs  had 
the  hardest  part  of  the  ride.  A  few  days  before 
the  start  there  was  a  good-sized  snowstorm 
along  his  section,  and  the  country  roads  were 
[  27] 


The  Latchstring 


in  poor  condition,  some  being  badly  drifted. 
The  race  proceeded  without  any  extraordi- 
nary incident  until  the  foot  of  Shaker  Hill, 
on  the  northern  side,  was  reached.  There  the 
horse  plunged  through  a  big  drift.  But  the 
sleigh  stuck.  The  tugs  and  other  parts  of  the 
harness  snapped,  and  the  racer  was  soon  clear 
of  the  rigging.  But  not  clear  of  the  spry  and 
resourceful  Hobbs,  for  he  held  to  the  reins, 
jumped  the  dasher,  pulled  in  the  steaming 
steed,  mounted,  and  rode  the  long  hill  to  the 
Ricker  House  at  a  smart  canter.  Here  he  was 
received  with  due  ceremony  by  Sam  Mills, 
Wentworth  Ricker's  trusty  horseman,  who 
had  a  fresh  team  in  readiness.  It  seems  that 
Hobbs's  mishaps  were  bunched  in  this  short 
section  of  the  ride,  for  Sewell  Brackett,  who 
stabled  and  rubbed  down  his  horse,  says  that 
on  turning  too  sharply  into  the  yard,  the  rider 
was  thrown  and  pitched  into  a  big  drift.  As 
before,  he  was  uninjured,  and  little  time  was 
lost.  Meantime,  the  precaution  of  strapping 
on  the  mail-bag  had  justified  itself. 
[  28] 


The  Open  Door 


Thus  the  ride  went  on,  up  and  down  the 
hills  of  Oxford,  with  now  and  then  a  cheer  at 
the  taverns  and  stores,  and,  so  far  as  I  can 
learn,  without  untoward  event.  The  going 
got  much  better  beyond  Bethel,  and  Hobbs 
crossed  the  State  line  and  rode  into  Gorham, 
New  Hampshire,  man  and  horse  in  good  form. 
Here  Bodge  took  up  the  running,  under  much 
the  same  conditions,  except  that  he  had  to 
wait  for  fresh  teams  to  be  harnessed,  as  there 
was  no  means  of  sending  word  ahead  after 
the  advance  guard  had  been  passed  at  Paris 
Hill.  Waterhouse  caught  on  at  St.  Hyacinthe, 
Quebec.  He  had  the  shortest  of  the  three  runs, 
and  the  best  roads,  and  rode  in  record  time  into 
Montreal,  where  he  was  given  the  keys  and 
freedom  of  the  city  and  all  that  goes  with 
them,  which  —  they  tell  me  —  means  much  or 
means  little  in  Montreal,  according  to  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  hero.  Let  us  hope  that  he  was 
a  modest  hero,  and  bore  the  responsible  bur- 
dens of  hospitality  wisely  and  not  too  well. 
The  newspapers  of  Canada  made  much  of  the 
[29] 


The  Latchstring 


event,  and  the  arrival  of  Waterhouse  was 
ceremoniously  announced  in  the  Canadian 
Parliament  in  session  at  the  time. 

But  what  of  the  Boston  riders?  —  Hadn't 
been  heard  of.  Nobody  seemed  to  know  where 
they  were  —  or  cared.  There's  nothing  quite 
so  uninteresting  in  Montreal  —  or  anywhere 
else  —  as  a  loser.  The  Maine  route  and  the 
Maine  drivers  had  won,  and  won  handsomely. 
They  were  the  fellows !  You  will  get  some  idea 
of  the  extent  of  the  winning  when  you  appre- 
ciate that  at  the  moment  when  Waterhouse 
delivered  his  mail-bag  at  the  Montreal  Post- 
Office,  the  mail  by  way  of  Boston  was  some- 
where between  Newport,  Vermont,  and  St. 
Johnsbury.  The  distance  by  the  carriage  road 
of  those  days  from  Portland  to  Montreal  was 
about  three  hundred  miles.  The  run  was 
made  in  twenty  hours,  or  an  average  of  about 
fifteen  miles  an  hour. 

•    I  cannot  say  how  much  influence,  if  any, 

this  famous  ride  had  on  subsequent  enterprises, 

but  within  a  decade  the  Grand  Trunk  Rail- 

[30] 


The  Open  Door 


way  was  completed  from  Montreal  to  tidewater 
at  Portland,  and  it  nowhere  runs  far  from  the 
roads  taken  by  the  three  Maine  stage-drivers. 
Another  not  uninteresting  result  was  the  pro- 
motion of  Hobbs,  Bodge,  and  Waterhouse  to 
the  post  of  conductor  on  the  new  railroad,  and 
they  are  said  by  men  who  often  traveled  with 
them  to  have  enjoyed  all  the  glory  and  promi- 
nence that  go  with  the  great  office.  Whatever 
else  happened,  certain  it  is  that  the  event  at- 
tracted a  great  deal  of  attention  in  other 
States,  and  who  can  say  that  it  did  not  bring 
us  many  a  sojourner,  who,  curious  and  doubt- 
ful, perhaps,  came  to  scoff  and  remained  to 
play? 

We  know  by  actual  figures  the  tremendous 
possibilities  of  the  water-powers  of  Maine. 
We  know  by  calculation  what  we  are  doing 
and  can  do  in  manufacturing,  what  we  are 
doing  and  can  do  in  agriculture,  what  the  for- 
ests produce.  But  we  are  only  just  beginning 
to  find  out,  by  a  process  of  calculation,  crude 
though  it  must  necessarily  be,  that  the  resort 
[31  ] 


The  Latchstring 


business,  to  speak  in  plain  business  terms,  is 
to-day  the  greatest  industry  of  the  State  as  a 
revenue  producer  to  all  classes  of  citizens.  I  go 
beyond  this.  When  you  take  into  considera- 
tion that,  unlike  any  other  industry,  it  brings 
in  entirely  new  money  from  out  of  the  State, 
and  distributes  it  among  all  classes  of  people 
in  the  State,  from  the  lawyer  to  the  guide, 
philosopher  and  friend,  —  not  forgetting  the 
bell-boy,  —  it  bids  fair  in  the  future  to  exceed 
any  two  industries  combined. 

In  round  numbers  these  are  the  values  of 
the  annual  products  of  the  leading  industries 
in  Maine:  Shipbuilding,  $3,000,000;  foundry 
and  machine  shops,  $4,000,000;  canning  and 
preserving  fish,  $4,500,000;  boots  and  shoes, 
$12,600,000;  woolen  and  worsted  goods,  $17,- 
500,000;  cotton  goods,  $15,400,000;  lumber 
and  timber  products,  $22,000,000;  pulp  and 
paper,  $22,900,000.  I  shall  probably  surprise 
you  when  I  say  that  the  actual  money  value 
of  the  resort  industry  in  the  State  amounts  to 
more  than  the  entire  value  of  the  product  of  all 
[32] 


'The  Open  Door 


the  great  pulp  and  paper  mills,  the  greatest  in 
the  quoted  list.  The  experts  in  the  transporta- 
tion and  hotel  business  have  made  this  calcu- 
lation from  the  best  available  returns.  As  best 
they  can,  they  keep  account  of  the  people 
coming  into  Maine  each  year  purely  for  pleas- 
ure. This  number  in  the  last  few  years  they 
find  has  been  between  450,000  and  500,000 
for  the  months  of  June,  July,  August,  and  Sep- 
tember. There  must  be  added  thousands  more 
who  come  for  the  early  spring  fishing,  which 
begins  in  April,  and  for  the  fall  shooting,  which 
does  not  end  until  the  last  of  December.  It  is 
further  estimated  by  these  experts  that  each 
visitor,  from  the  time  he  crosses  the  State  line 
until  he  returns  again,  leaves  at  least  $50  — 
a  low  enough  figure,  indeed.  Thus  it  will  be 
seen  that  a  low  estimate  of  the  annual  revenue 
from  this  source  is  $25,000,000,  and  it  is  all 
new  money.  While  much  of  the  profit  of 
Maine  mills  must  be  distributed  in  other 
States,  because  other  States  furnish  a  large 
part  of  the  capital,  the  resort  revenue  comes 
[33  1 


The  Latchstring 

from  out  of  the  State  and  is  distributed  and 
circulated  among  our  own  people.  There  is 
not  a  class  that  does  not  receive  its  share.  For 
instance,  I  know  of  one  hotel  alone  that  spends 
among  the  farmers  within  a  radius  of  fifteen 
miles  more  than  $40,000  each  year  for  fresh 
vegetables,  cream,  and  eggs.  And  the  farmer, 
who  looked  at  first  with  curiosity  and  then 
with  some  aversion  at  the  "  resorter,"  now  be- 
gins to  appreciate  his  value. 

And  did  you  ever  realize  that  in  this  great 
industry,  instead  of  depleting  the  resources, 
instead  of  destroying,  we  are  actually  increas- 
ing and  building  up?  A  mine  or  a  quarry  or  a 
forest  may  be  exhausted  as  it  brings  in  revenue 
to  its  owner,  the  price  of  the  product  may  rise 
or  fall  with  the  market,  often  the  toy  of 
schemers.  But  here  is  the  State  of  Maine,  with 
its  1600  lakes  and  ponds,  its  5000  streams  and 
rivers,  its  grand  hills  and  picturesque  valleys, 
its  3000  miles  of  seacoast,  in  bays,  and  harbors, 
and  delightful  inlets,  —  and  here  they  will  ever 
remain,  their  intrinsic  value  always  the  same. 
l34l 


RIPOGEN'US   GORGE:    UNDEVELOPED 


"The  Open  Door 


I  have  spoken  of  climate.  The  doctors  tell 
us  that  wide  variations  in  temperature  are  bad 
for  the  human  voice.  And  in  the  course  of  a 
year,  down  in  Maine,  the  temperature  varies 
to  an  extent  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  degrees. 
Yet  this  State  has  produced  three  of  the 
world's  great  singers.  Who  will  deny  this  title 
to  Annie  Louise  Gary,  Nordica,  and  Emma 
Eames?  Who  that  has  heard  their  voices  will 
ever  forget  them? 

And  here  am  I,  boasting  I  ne'er  would  boast, 
still  boasting. 


Ill 

AND  THIS  WAS  MAINE 

OPEN  your  geography  at  a  map  of  the  United 
States  and  look  it  over.  Then  get  into  your 
mind  the  very  important  question  of  summer 
temperatures.  You  will  find  at  a  glance,  and 
on  the  briefest  consideration,  that  the  only 
section  of  the  country  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  that  gives  complete  and  perennial 
assurance  of  cool  weather  in  the  warm  months 
is  the  coast  of  Maine. 

I  have  slept  away  forty-one  summers  on 
Squirrel  Island,  at  the  entrance  of  Boothbay 
Harbor,  and  am  something  of  an  amateur 
thermometer  crank.  In  all  this  time  I  have 
never  known  the  mercury  to  rise  above  sixty- 
nine  degrees  between  sunset  and  sunrise,  dur- 
ing the  four  months  of  June,  July,  August, 
and  September.  Sometimes  it  goes  down  to 
fifty-five,  and  in  cool  northers  to  fifty,  but  for 
[36] 


And  this  was  Maine 

the  greater  part  of  the  time  it  is  in  the  sixties, 
—  good  sleeping  temperature.  The  reason,  of 
course,  is  quite  plain  and  simple,  the  temper- 
ing influence  of  the  deep  salt  water,  never 
above  the  fifties,  always  at  work  night  and 
day,  always  vital. 

Here  are  the  real  bold  coasts  of  the  Atlantic 
States.  In  hundreds  of  places,  the  conditions 
of  sea  permitting,  an  ocean  liner  could  run  up 
to  the  very  rocks,  make  fast  to  a  hardy  spruce, 
and  land  passengers  and  cargo  without  even 
scratching  the  paint  of  her  under-body.  On 
the  other  hand,  still  glancing  at  the  map,  you 
will  note  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  short 
sections  like  the  north  shore  of  Massachusetts 
and  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  the  coastline 
from  western  Maine  way  down  to  the  tip  end 
of  Florida  is  low,  flat,  sandy,  and  monotonous, 
the  water  shallow,  insipid,  and  warm.  Of 
course,  on  these  endless  beaches  there  is  the 
delight  of  salt  bathing  in  waters  of  higher  tem- 
perature, but  one  can  get  this  in  western 
Maine,  where  there  are  beaches  —  good  and 
[371 


"The  Latchstring 


hard  beaches,  to  be  sure,  but  not  endless,  praise 
be.  And  besides,  who  would  wear  himself  out 
with  bathing  all  the  time?  And  when  you  have 
said  bathing,  you  have  said  the  alpha  and 
omega  and  all  the  rest  of  the  alphabet  of  the 
other  resorts  reaching  down  to  the  south. 

Think  of  it  —  think  of  it,  if  you  happen  to 
be  reading  this  inadequate  chapter  in  some 
hot,  stuffy  room  on  a  hot,  stuffy  night  in  — 
say  Philadelphia  or  Washington.  The  weather 
man,  who  is  neither  romantic  nor  aesthetic,  — 
nor  has  he  any  cottage  lots  for  sale,  —  who 
deals  in  the  stern  realities  of  cold  figures, — 
the  weather  man  tells  me  that  the  average 
temperature  for  the  coast  of  Maine  in  the  last 
forty-four  years  for  the  summer  months  of 
June,  July,  and  August  was  65.7  degrees.  And 
this,  mind  you,  taking  into  the  account  a  few 
days  each  year  when  the  mercury  runs  up 
into  the  nineties  just  to  give  pleasant  con- 
trast, days  which  you  really  enjoy  because 
you  know  that  sundown  will  bring  back  the 
refreshment  of  coolness  and  return  to  you  the 
[38] 


And  this  was  Maine 

vitality  of  the  typical  Maine  atmosphere.  The 
mean  temperature  of  the  interior  for  the  same 
months  is  but  little  higher.  At  Greenville,  up 
in  the  Moosehead  region,  where  the  Govern- 
ment maintains  a  weather  station,  the  aver- 
age is  about  the  same,  and  at  Poland,  where 
private  enterprise  keeps  the  record,  not  so  far 
back  from  the  coast,  but  still  quite  typical  of 
the  interior  resorts,  the  average  is  about  one 
degree  higher. 

(•  Sailing  one  season  with  the  International 
Brotherhood  of  Multimillionaires,  I  came 
across  in  the  good  ship  Queen  Mab,  Captain 
Nathaniel  Francis,  from  Vineyard  Haven  to 
Mount  Desert,  in  an  outside  race  of  some  two 
hundred  miles  which  marked  the  wind-up  of 
the  annual  August  cruise  of  the  New  York 
Yacht  Club  for  that  year.  I  took  on  a  new 
pride  in  Maine,  and,  I  feel  quite  sure,  a  new 
lease  of  life.  We  had  been  drifting  about  the 
Sound  for  a  week,  with  never  a  sail-full  and 
ever  a  shift  of  fickle  airs.  Sheets  were  limp, 
booms  and  blocks  a-slat,  —  what  a  fine  ex- 
[391 


The  Latchstring 

pressive  word  for  the  doldrums!  Vision  was 
obscured  by  soft-coal  smoke  from  stacks  afloat 
and  ashore,  hanging  heavy  and  dull,  low  and 
lifeless.  There  was  everywhere  a  plethora  of 
inertness  and  insipidity.  We  just  lolled.  Few,  if 
any,  even  answered  the  call  to — arms — when 
the  hot  red  ball  of  a  sun  crossed  the  yardarm. 
Rounding  Pollock  Rip  lightship  at  five 
o'clock  of  an  otherwise  dull  Saturday  after- 
noon, a  gentle  but  steady  southwester,  origi- 
nating somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  a  Hoboken 
gas  plant,  caught  up  with  us.  We  set  the  spin- 
naker, laid  a  course  for  Baker's  Island  Light, 
something  like  "nothe-east  by  nothe"  —  very 
long,  nasal  o  —  and  let  her  splosh  along  through 
the  night.  The  rakish  but  good  ship  Corsair, 
Captain  J.  P.  Morgan,  was  the  steam  convoy 
of  the  fleet.  I  remember  with  distinctness  that 
as  night  shut  down,  the  good  ship  Sappho, 
one  of  the  big  schooner  class,  Captain  Thomas 
B.  Reed,  First  Mate  Mark  Twain,  was  only 
about  two  hundred  yards  away  on  our  port 
quarter.  Some  one  on  board  was  laughing. 
[40! 


And  this  was  Maine 

When  we  arose  in  the  morning  —  temporarily 
—  to  see  the  sun,  still  a  red  ball,  come  out  of 
the  water,  there  was  the  Sappho  still  in  the 
same  relative  position,  having  neither  gained 
nor  lost  an  inch.  Some  one  on  board  was  still 
laughing  —  and  rather  inordinately  for  a  quiet 
New  England  Sunday  morning.  We  finished 
the  run  at  seven  o'clock  that  evening,  still 
carrying  the  spinnaker,  and  without  touching 
a  sheet  or  a  halyard  in  twenty-six  hours.  When 
we  all  came  to  anchor  in  a  snug  little  berth  at 
the  southern  end  of  Mount  Desert  Island 
there  was  still  a  bit  of  haze,  and  the  last  of  the 
craft  to  round  the  murky  light  and  anchor 
rode  in  on  the  death  of  the  gas-plant  breeze. 
Gloomy  we  dined,  and  gloomy  we  smoked  and 
read  and  dozed,  and  gloomy  we  sought  our 
gloomy  bunks.  The  spell  of  the  flat  waters  of 
the  Sound  was  still  abroad,  and  it  was  an 
unambitious  floating  Brotherhood. 

And  then  the  morning !  And  such  a  morning ! 
No  attempted  amateur  description  is  needed 
for  any  one  who  has  aroused  himself  and  his 
[41  1 


The  Latchstring 

shipmates  under  like  conditions  on  a  real 
Maine  coast  morning.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
a  stiff  northwester,  originating  somewhere  up 
among  the  pines,  where  the  air  is  one  hundred 
per  cent  pure,  was  blowing  down  through 
Bluehill  Bay,  over  Green  Mountain,  and  push- 
ing whitecaps  out  to  sea.  Captains,  and  mates, 
and  sailors,  and  poets,  and  multimillionaires, 
and  statesmen,  and  humorists,  and  mortals 
were  early  astir  and  out  on  deck.  There  was 
no  stage  sunrise  that  morning,  —  deep  breath- 
ing was  the  only  bracer,  —  and  —  "  Steward, 
breakfast  on  deck!"  And  there  were  fresh 
tinker  mackerel. 

•  Now,  it  is  very  undignified  to  shout  from  one 
good  ship  to  another  during  a  dignified  cruise 
of  the  dignified  New  York  Yacht  Club  —  see 
section  28  of  the  amended  constitution.  But 
yachting  decorum  went  to  the  northwest 
winds,  and  poets,  and  statesmen,  and  the  like 
skylarked,  and  called  to  their  friends,  and  ran 
up  and  down  the  decks,  —  a  few  were  inspired 
into  the  rigging,  —  and  somebody  pushed  some- 
[42] 


And  this  was  Maine 

body  overboard,  and  the  good  ship  Sappho, 
Captain  Thomas  B.  Reed,  First  Mate  Mark 
Twain,  no  longer  had  a  monopoly  of  laughter. 
It  takes  cocktails  and  champagne  to  do  this  in 
the  Sound,  but  up  here  —  it's  all  in  the  air. 

And  this  was  Maine!  And  I  was  proud.  So, 
with  single  reefs,  we  beat  it  up  by  Schooner 
Head  and  into  Bar  Harbor,  as  happy,  care- 
free, and  boyish  a  lot  of  multimillionaires  as 
ever  robbed  a  widow  and  orphan. 

I  wish  to  say  now,  before  going  back  to 
York  Harbor  to  sail  east  closer  inshore,  that 
there  was  money  for  Maine  in  that  night's 
shift  of  wind.  For  many  a  big  yacht-owner 
did  I  hear  say  this  —  or  something  like  this: 
"Well,  by  George,  this  is  great.  I  have  been 
wasting  time  west  of  the  Cape.  Me  for  Maine 
in  the  good  old  summer  time,"  —  in  the  good 
old  Brotherhood  vernacular.  And  I've  seen 
him,  and  many  of  him,  many  times  since  en- 
joying himself  in  the  soft  shore  airs,  not  only 
in  his  palace  afloat,  but  in  his  palace  ashore, 
built  afterwards  as  a  permanent  summer  home. 


IV 

KITTERY  TO   SAIL  ROCK 

THE  only  really  reprehensible  thing  con- 
nected with  the  coast  of  Maine  is  that  rickety 
old  bridge  from  Portsmouth  to  Kittery.  George 
Varney,  in  his  "Gazetteer  of  Maine,"  says  it 
was  built  in  1822.  It  looks  it  —  and  rides  it. 
If  you  have  time,  go  downstream  and  take  the 
little  ferry.  You  will  go  only  a  little  farther 
and  certainly  fare  no  worse.  Incidentally,  you 
will  get  a  nearer  view  of  a  small  projection  of 
land  whose  official  but  unchristian  name  is 
"Pull-and-be-Damned  Point."  Go  down  even 
if  you  have  n't  time.  You  will  do  your  indi- 
vidual part  in  serving  justifiable  protest  and 
hastening  the  welcome  day  of  a  new  gateway 
into  the  garden. 

However,  you  may  cross  the  harmless  Pis- 
cataqua  any  way  you  like.  Once  over,  and  you 
have  ridden,  or  walked,  into  the  region  of 
[44] 


A   DISAPPEARING   RIG 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

"romantic  interest,  every  inlet  its  history  and 
beauty."  Here  was  the  western  theater  of  the 
great  Indian  wars  of  colonial  Maine,  when  the 
hardy  pioneer  and  the  wily  redman  —  Ugh! 
Why  speak  of  wars  —  now?  Especially  when 
Williamson  and  Varney  and  the  other  his- 
torians of  this  historic  State  were  the  last  words 
in  Indian  uprisings?  Besides,  are  we  not  on 
recreation  bent?  And  have  not  Mr.  Howells 
and  John  Kendrick  Bangs  completely  pacified 
the  shores  of  ancient  York  with  charming 
personality,  gentle  humor,  and  delightful  writ- 
ing? 

If  you  go  into  the  expensive  navy  yard  at 
Kittery,  they  will  first  of  all  point  out  the  un- 
pretentious stores-room  where  Russia  and 
Japan  made  their  peace  ten  years  ago,  and  then 
tell  you  that  the  signing  of  the  treaty  was  post- 
poned half  an  hour  because  of  the  absence  of 
champagne  glasses,  an  accident  due  to  excus- 
able thoughtlessness,  of  course,  because  the 
ceremony  was  taking  place  on  Maine  soil  where 
people  are  not  supposed  to  be  thinking  of  cham- 
[45] 


The  Latchstring 

pagne.  I  should  have  been  skeptical  about  this 
historic  international  near-tragedy  had  I  not 
seen  it  and  reported  it  in  the  journals  of  the 
times.  And  may  I  quote: 

"French  champagne,  or  rather  the  absence 
of  American  champagne  glasses,  played  an 
important,  not  to  say  humorous,  part  in  the 
conclusion  of  the  Peace  of  Portsmouth.  It  is 
a  foreign  custom  to  drink  the  health  of  the 
sovereigns  of  the  two  countries  concerned  at 
the  conclusion  of  such  a  ceremony.  It  is  al- 
most never  omitted,  and  the  standard  wine  of 
all  the  world  is  used.  M.  Witte,  Baron  Rosen, 
Baron  Komura,  and  Minister  Takahira  were 
waiting  in  the  anteroom  for  the  Russian  and 
Japanese  secretaries  to  finish  the  reading  and 
comparison  of  the  four  copies  of  the  treaty. 
Finally  it  was  announced  that  they  were  ready 
for  the  signatures,  when  the  awful  discovery 
was  made  that,  while  the  champagne  neces- 
sary for  the  conclusion  of  peace  was  in  readi- 
ness, the  champagne  glasses  were  not.  The 
indignity  of  drinking  out  of  bottles  would  never 
[46] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

do,  so  the  ceremony  of  signing  was  delayed 
while  glasses  were  brought  from  Portsmouth." 

It  occurs  to  me  now  that  they  might  have 
been  found  hard  by  at  the  mansion  of  Sir 
William  Pepperell,  who  once  led  the  soldiers 
of  the  New  England  colonies.  There  are  curi- 
osities there  of  interest  to  the  antiquarian, 
and  champagne  glasses  may  be  among  them. 

There  are  half  a  dozen  different  ways  of  go- 
ing down  the  Maine  coast  —  we  always  say 
"down,"  even  down  here.  By  any  one  of  them 
it  is  possible  to  get  the  full  benefit  and  enjoy- 
ment of  its  vitality  and  scalloped  scenery. 
Take  the  steam  train  and  "stop  off"  all  the 
way  down  to  Eastport  and  you  can't  go  far 
wrong.  Nowhere  in  the  world  are  the  delights 
of  "trolleying"  in  summer  any  greater,  and 
with  the  exception  of  only  one  break  you  can 
thus  make  the  trip  from  Kittery  to  Old  Town, 
with  scores  of  worth-while  trolley  detours. 
And  one  can  motor  the  coast  by  land  or  by  sea 
and  miss  nothing  of  its  beauty.  Then  there 
are  two  old-fashioned  ways  —  I  suppose  my 
[471 


Latchstring 


gasoline  friends  would  call  them  primitive  — 
sailing  and  walking.  Each  has  its  particular 
charm  and  I  advise  the  visitor  who  has  the 
time  and  the  poetry  not  to  overlook  either. 
Happy,  careless  days  were  those  when  we  were 
turned  loose  in  catboats  and  small  sloops 
cruising  Whittier's  "  hundred-harbored  Maine." 
I  did  this  nearly  every  year  in  a  twenty-foot 
catboat  from  Cape  Elizabeth  to  Frenchman's 
Bay,  from  the  time  when  I  was  twelve  years 
old  till  long  after  college  days,  scooting  in  and 
out  of  the  many  rivers  and  harbors,  lunching 
ashore,  now  here,  now  there;  or  on  board,  now 
here,  now  there,  sleeping  in  the  cockpit,  the 
sleep  of  the  just  and  unterrined,  with  the  sky 
the  limit.  And  there  were  sailors  in  those  days  ! 
Some  of  our  boys  could  make  a  cat  or  a  sloop 
do  everything  but  sing  and  lecture  on  moral 
philosophy.  Ask  Frank  Houston.  And  some 
day,  —  at  least,  I  hope,  —  when  the  rush  hour 
has  passed,  when  the  craze  for  getting  there 
anyhow,  somehow,  but  soon,  has  run  its  course, 
the  calm,  gentle,  meditative,  and  highly  bene- 
[48] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

ficial  exercise  of  walking  will  come  back.  When 
it  does,  and  you  can  enjoy  its  measured  delights 
without  being  too  much  out  of  style,  do  as 
much  of  the  Maine  coast  as  you  can  that  way. 
Do  it  a  hundred  times  and  you'll  find  a  hun- 
dred new  attractions. 

Northeast  out  of  Kittery,  and  following  along 
the  general  direction  of  the  coast-line,  we  come 
to  the  group  of  royal  Yorks,  —  York  Har- 
bor, York  Beach,  York  Cliffs,  and,  just  inside, 
York  Village  and  York  Corner.  Quiet,  restful 
places  these,  with  an  air  of  refinement  and 
letters  in  both  the  cottage  and  hotel  life. 
There  is  gentle  inspiration  in  the  undulating 
nature  of  York  County,  and  no  wonder  some 
of  America's  best  thinkers,  writers,  and  artists 
find  here  congenial  environment.  And  then 
Ogunquit,  with  its  good  hotels,  and  Wells,  and 
the  Kennebunks,  —  Kennebunk  Village,  quiet, 
peaceful,  charming,  with  its  tremendous  La- 
fayette Elm,  its  handsome  old  church,  its  clean 
white  houses,  and  its  kitchen  gardens  bor- 
dered with  old-fashioned  single  hollyhocks  and 
[49  1 


The  Latchstring 

pink  phlox,  —  and  down  below,  a  delightful 
drive  or  walk,  the  newer  Port  and  Beach. 

The  grand  sweeping  curve  of  Old  Orchard 
Beach,  from  Biddeford  Pool  on  the  south  to 
Prout's  Neck  on  the  north,  the  scene  of  Wins- 
low  Homer's  best  work,  where  the  waters  are 
bluer  and  the  sandy  shores  harder  than  any- 
where else,  is  world-famous.  It  was  one  of  the 
first  of  the  big  summer  resorts  of  New  Eng- 
land and  still  holds  its  place  in  popularity. 

Nature  was  both  lavish  and  methodical  in 
preparing  the  entrance  to  Maine  through 
restful  old  York  with  its  gently  sloping  shores 
and  hills.  Beyond,  the  coast  is  steep  and 
rocky,  in  places  mountainous,  and  the  gradual 
advance  into  rugged  territory  delights  and 
rests  the  traveler's  eye  with  its  slow  but  con- 
stant changes.  Nowhere  more  than  on  the 
Scarboro  marshes,  just  across  the  county  line 
in  Cumberland,  painted  many  times  by  many 
artists  in  softest  of  greens  and  an  atmosphere 
of  peace  and  complete  rest.  I  have  sat  for 
hours  —  yes,  days  —  in  ugly  shooting-boxes 
[  So] 


THE    SCARBORO   MARSHES 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

in  the  very  center  of  these  marshes,  and  won- 
dered, with  never  a  thought  of  a  gun.  It  is 
difficult  to  make  either  mental  or  verbal  analy- 
sis of  this  particular  part  of  Maine  scenery. 
You  feel  it,  but  cannot  describe  it.  And  just 
as  well,  for  is  there  not  content  in  Nature's 
unsolved  mysteries  and  is  it  not  sometimes  su- 
preme? There  is  much  the  same  feeling  as  you 
come  suddenly  to  the  slight  rise  of  land  at  the 
very  end  of  the  street-car  line  on  Cape  Eliza- 
beth, with  the  majesty  and  mystery  of  the 
deep  sea  on  the  left,  and  immediately  before 
you,  and  on  the  right,  the  soft  hazes  of  Spur- 
wink,  a  continuation  of  the  Scarboro  marshes 
—  a  view  that  never  becomes  monotonous, 
ever  soothes  and  often  inspires. 

Standing  one  spring  day  on  one  of  the  Grand 
Trunk  docks  in  Portland,  I  saw  one  of  the  big 
ocean  steamers  that  make  this  port  in  winter 
cast  off,  put  to  sea,  and  get  into  open  water 
in  twenty  minutes  without  assistance  from  a 
tug,  and  without  once  having  turned  at  right 
angles.  Where  is  there  a  deep-water  harbor 


The  Latchstring 

so  large,  so  well  sheltered,  so  nearly  perfect  in 
all  the  requirements  of  a  harbor,  that  can 
present  a  spectacle  like  this?  Yes,  my  Chicago 
friend,  some  harbor  —  I  can  hear  you  say  it. 
And  quite  true.  But  I  only  mention  it  as  a 
mere  matter  of  form  —  just  to  get  by.  For 
who  that  writes  or  speaks  of  Portland  ever 
omits  to  say  that  its  harbor  is  the  best  in  the 
world?  True,  to  be  sure,  but  trite.  Everybody 
who  knows  harbors  knows  this.  To  expatiate 
would  be  like  persisting  verbosely  that  Swit- 
zerland is  a  hilly  country.  The  real  thing 
about  Portland  is  that  it  is  unlike  any  other 
American  city.  It  has  individuality,  distinc- 
tion. And  these  are  all  the  time  impressive. 
Some  of  our  newer  and  livelier  municipal 
neighbors  may  call  it  "oppressive,"  and  the 
individuality  that  of  a  refrigerator  —  but,  of 
course,  by  way  of  jocularity  and  not  in  envy. 
But  even  if  in  justice,  have  not  refrigerators 
their  uses  ? 

With  the  exception  possibly  of  a  few  periods 
of  strenuous  upbuilding  in  the  very  early  days, 
[  52] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

and  the  recovery  from  the  great  fire  of  1866, 
the  City  of  Portland  has  not  been  guilty  of 
being  a  "boom  town."  It  has  never  suffered 
either  the  action  or  reaction  of  the  "booster" 
process  which  has  seemed  so  necessary  to  the 
existence  of  cities  of  corresponding  size  in  the 
West.  It  is  enterprising  on  the  best  lines,  — 
steady,  not  noisy.  Its  business  life  is  conserva- 
tive, sound,  just,  with  the  substance  of  gener- 
ous and  fair-minded  men,  not  of  great  but  of 
modest  wealth.  Its  social  life  is  filled  with  the 
charm  and  hospitality  of  genuine  men  and 
women  affected  neither  by  restless  ambition 
nor  foolish  feelings  of  superiority.  Its  religious 
life  is  broad-minded,  as  it  should  be,  and  not 
hysterical,  as  it  should  not  be.  Billy  Sunday 
would  get  a  hearing,  but  women  would  not  fall 
faint  in  the  sawdust.  Of  course,  there  are  no 
statistics  on  which  to  make  any  accurate  state- 
ments, but  I  venture  that  there  is  no  city  in 
the  world  that  does  more  in  the  way  of  effec- 
tive charity  in  proportion  to  its  means.  There 
is  real  wholesomeness  and  dignity  in  the  general 
(53  } 


T*he  Latchstring 


life,  and  the  city  in  its  entirety  always  seems  to 
be  conscious  that  Longfellow  was  its  poet  and 
Fessenden  and  Reed  were  its  statesmen. 

I  am  tarrying  a  bit  longer  in  Portland,  not 
out  of  any  prejudice  as  a  resident,  but  because 
its  people  are  characteristic  of  Maine  people, 
it  is  the  metropolis  of  the  State,  and  the  dis- 
tributing center  and  portal  to  its  many  pleas- 
ure places.  As  a  place  of  permanent  residence, 
where  is  its  equal  in  America  for  him  who  pre- 
fers the  small  city — and  who  should  not? 
For  him  who  enjoys  the  change  of  seasons  — 
and  who  does  not?  For  him  who  would  com- 
bine the  delights  of  seashore  and  country  life  ? 
—  for  here  they  are,  both  in  ten  minutes.  As 
a  resort  in  summer  it  is  annually  found  most 
satisfying  to  many  thousands  of  people,  while 
visitors  to  the  central  and  eastern  Maine  re- 
sorts find  it  a  convenient  and  entertaining 
stopping-place  both  going  and  coming.  And 
where  has  America  a  seacoast  city  with  such 
outlooks  as  those  from  the  Eastern  and  Western 
Promenades,  the  one  towering  abruptly  from 
[54] 


O     v 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

the  harbor  with  the  open  sea  and  the  whole  of 
Casco  Bay  in  view,  the  other  overlooking  the 
fields  and  forests  and  hills  of  western  Maine, 
on  to  the  White  Mountains,  which  on  clear 
days  stand  out  as  mighty  sentinels  of  a  chosen 
land?  An  American  city  indeed  unique,  and 
if  in  no  other  respect  certainly  in  the  wonder- 
ful municipal  organ  and  its  great  influence 
for  education  and  refined  entertainment  for 
its  own  people  and  its  guests.  When  the  new 
City  Hall  was  built,  a  structure,  by  the  way, 
that  represents  the  very  highest  conception 
in  New  England  architecture,  Mr.  Cyrus  H.  K. 
Curtis,  of  Philadelphia,  a  native  and  summer 
resident  of  the  State,  presented  the  city  with 
a  grand  organ  which  was  built  into  the  audi- 
torium of  the  municipal  building.  It  is  one  of 
the  three  great  organs  of  the  world,  and  is  now 
regarded  by  musicians  as  the  best  in  the  world. 
Under  the  direction  of  a  music  commission  of 
citizens,  the  municipality  employs  at  an  annual 
salary  one  of  the  most  famous  of  American 
organists,  and  each  Sunday  afternoon  a  free 
[55] 


Latchstring 


concert  is  given  to  thousands,  and  at  other 
times  during  the  week  at  popular  prices. 
Every  afternoon  during  the  summer  months 
an  hour's  concert  is  given,  and  these  are  largely 
attended  by  summer  visitors  who  come  for 
many  miles  for  this  musical  welcome. 

Every  poet  who  has  ever  seen  Casco  Bay 
and  its  islands  has  put  them  into  verse,  every 
one  a  "gem."  And  why  not?  It  is  a  beautiful 
sheet  of  water  and  whether  you  sail  down 
among  its  hundreds  of  islands  or  view  them 
from  the  car  line  from  Portland  to  Yarmouth, 
—  called  by  many  travelers  the  most  pictur- 
esque trolley  ride  in  the  East,  —  you  have 
before  you  a  placid  and  beautiful  picture. 

And  now  the  Kennebec,  guarded  night  and 
day  by  somber  Seguin,  and  then  on  to  the 
east  where  the  shore-line,  while  growing  more 
rugged,  becomes  more  deeply  indented  with 
bays  and  inlets.  There  is  quite  as  much  excit- 
ing history  about  the  Kennebec  and  Sheepscot 
River  region  as  in  any  part  of  the  State.  But 
now  tranquillity  reigns  and  they  are  visited 
[56] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

every  year  by  many  thousands  of  people  be- 
cause of  their  calm  and  picturesque  beauty. 
Just  around  the  quaint  little  fishing  settlement 
of  Cape  Newagen,  famous  in  tradition  and 
story,  is  Boothbay  Harbor  and  its  charming 
islands,  first  known  as  a  resort  more  than 
forty-five  years  ago.  As  a  harbor,  well  shel- 
tered and  bold  of  shore,  in  size  it  ranks  second 
to  Portland  only.  And  in  size  it  is  not  to  be 
ignored,  for  in  the  old  days,  prior  to  the  uni- 
versality of  gasoline,  in  a  grim  northeaster  I 
have  seen  five  hundred  sail,  —  seiners,  bankers, 
and  coasters,  every  one  in  a  safe  and  snug  berth, 
• —  anchored  all  the  way  from  Mouse  Island  to 
the  head  of  the  harbor. 

The  most  important  breakwater  for  this 
rather  remarkable  shelter  is  Squirrel  Island, 
known  almost  the  world  over  as  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  on  the  New  England  coast. 
Here  it  was  in  the  early  seventies  that  the 
pioneer  colony  of  "summer  people"  for  this 
center  section  of  the  Maine  coast  was  founded, 
led  by  Nelson  Dingley,  at  that  time  Governor 
[S7l 


The  Latchstring 

of  the  State.  It  originated  as  a  seashore  out- 
ing-place for  a  few  Kennebec  and  Androscog- 
gin  people,  and  has  since  grown  into  the  sum- 
mer home  of  people  from  almost  every  State 
in  the  Union,  altogether  unique  and  one  of  the 
most  charming  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  watering- 
places. 

Still  a  fine,  interesting,  old-fashioned  town, 
—  stores  closed  twelve  to  one,  —  whose  men 
and  women,  unspoiled  by  new  and  false  ideas, 
are  even  yet  of  the  old  school,  Boothbay  Har- 
bor is  the  center  of  a  large  summer  popula- 
tion varying  more  in  character  than  any  other 
in  the  State.  Here  are  kings  of  finance  and 
great  scientists,  artists,  authors,  shopgirls  and 
teachers,  clergymen  and  chemists  —  all  bent  on 
getting  health  and  pleasure  out  of  Maine,  with 
"going  t'  the  Harbor"  one  of  the  daily  joys. 

The  shire  town  of  this  coast  county  is  quaint 
and  quiet  Wiscasset,  a  dozen  miles  up  the 
Sheepscot  River,  noted  for  its  colonial  archi- 
tecture and  one  of  the  so-called  Marie  Antoi- 
nette houses  on  the  New  England  coast,  pre- 
[58] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

pared  for  her  coming,  but  which  she  never 
occupied.  Just  east  of  here  are  picturesque 
Newcastle,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the 
smaller  towns  of  the  State,  and  Damariscotta, 
not  unlike  it,  and  where  I  have  spent  many 
days  in  the  cleanest,  best  kept,  best  provided, 
and  smallest  hotel  to  be  found  in  America. 

Still  proceeding  down  the  coast  from  Booth- 
bay  Harbor,  beyond  the  rocks  of  Ocean  Point, 
by  Thrumcap  and  through  the  Thread-of-Life, 
to  Pemaquid,  where  the  early  English  voyagers 
exchanged  rum  for  Indians,  where  some  took 
Indians  without  so  much  as  suggesting  ex- 
change, —  Pemaquid  with  its  overweight  of  a 
very  ancient  fort  where  people  now  combine 
history  with  pleasure. 

In  any  complete  book  about  Maine,  be  it 
descriptive,  historical,  or  romantic,  Monhegan 
Island,  ten  miles  straight  out  to  sea  from 
Pemaquid  Point  light,  should  have  a  chapter 
by  itself.  A  whole  book  would  do  no  more 
than  justice.  Artists  have  painted  the  giant 
cliffs  of  its  eastern  shore  and  its  gruesome  fogs. 
[591 


Latchstring 

Writers  of  fiction  have  come  here  for  the  scene 
of  much  fiction,  and  in  some  of  it,  with  native 
regret,  I  have  noted  an  undue  warping  of  char- 
acter and  a  lack  of  fine  appreciation  of  a  really 
fine  people.  Unique  and  picturesque  are  the 
physical  features  of  this  always  far-off  island. 
But  they  do  not  constitute  the  main  attrac- 
tion. The  psychology  of  the  island  is  the  real 
thing  about  Monhegan.  If  all  people  were 
alike,  the  world  would  be  a  very  monotonous 
and  unhappy  place  of  existence.  Individuality 
is  the  spice  of  mundane  life.  Out  on  Monhe- 
gan one  can  find  real  biting  condiment.  The 
personnel  of  a  colony  of  a  hundred  or  more 
interesting,  insular  people  who  seldom  leave 
their  homes  —  some  have  not  been  on  the 
main  in  years,  some  never  —  is  worth  the  atten- 
tion of  the  deepest  university  philosopher. 
They  have  a  native  pride  all  their  own,  are 
fair  and  judicial,  careful  observers  of  the  laws 
of  the  State,  their  own  home-made  regulations, 
and  the  rights  of  neighbors;  friendly,  helpful, 
confirmed  in  religion  and  politics,  with  opin- 
[60] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

ions  of  their  own  and  ability  to  back  them,  in- 
telligent in  the  worth-while  matters  of  life,  if 
not  up-to-date  in  those  of  lesser  moment.  I 
know  of  no  colony  quite  like  this  on  the  Atlan- 
tic Coast.  The  principal  industry  just  now  is 
the  lobster  fishery,  and  they  have  a  local  law, 
a  sort  of  colony  agreement,  that  no  catches 
shall  be  made  within  three  miles  of  the  island 
shores,  except  from  January  15  to  July  15. 
They  keep  it  to  the  letter  and  profit  thereby. 
Midnight  of  January  15  is  an  event  in  the 
Monhegan  calendar,  and  on  the  hour  the  dories 
and  motor  smacks,  piled  high  with  traps,  put 
out  of  the  little  harbor  and  the  six  months' 
fishing  begins.  During  January  and  February 
they  find  the  top  of  the  market  in  prices,  and 
net  profits  from  $100  to  $150  a  day  have  been 
made,  but  these,  of  course,  are  unusual.  One 
fisherman  last  year  cleared  $3000  for  his  sea- 
son's work,  a  tidy  little  sum  on  Monhegan, 
where  the  Great  White  Way  is  short  and  the 
lurements  for  the  spendthrift  are  neither 
many  nor  varied. 

[61  ] 


"The  Latchstring 


The  summer  visitor  is  changing  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  island  little  by  little,  and  some 
of  the  habits,  customs,  and  styles  that  have 
merely  surface  expression,  but  not  the  stoi- 
cism of  the  natives.  In  fact,  the  native  stoic 
is  slow  to  accept  the  newcomer,  and  when  he 
does,  it  is  after  no  superficial  overhauling.  But 
when  once  election  takes  place,  the  best  is 
none  too  good.  There  is  a  very  pleasant  cus- 
tom of  addressing  the  visitor  by  his  first  name 
when  he  has  finally  been  accepted,  and  this 
even  by  the  younger  members  of  the  colony, 
who  have  been  taught  to  consider  it  a  mark  of 
respect.  Robert  Sewall,  whose  marines  have 
pleased  so  many  an  eye,  —  and  none  more 
than  those  of  Monhegan,  —  told  me  last  fall 
that  one  of  the  proudest  moments  of  his  life 
was  when  the  lightkeeper,  who  had  been  calling 
him  "Mister  Sewall"  for  the  first  weeks  of  his 
visit,  at  last  greeted  him  with  "Morning, 
Robert.  A  leetle  lowery."  Among  the  summer 
people  there  are  still  "Misters,"  who,  after 
several  seasons,  are  still  looking  for  Christian 
[62] 


MONHEGAN'S  GREAT  INDUSTRY 


MONHEGAN'S   GREAT   WHITE   WAY 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

forgiveness  as  expressed  by  the  use  of  the 
Christian  name.  But  the  islander  passes  no 
immature  judgments,  and  withal,  whatever 
these  are,  whether  of  visitor  or  permanent 
neighbor,  be  they  gentle  or  harsh,  there  is  at 
the  rock-bottom  of  the  Monhegan  character 
a  genuine  human  kindliness,  a  sort  of  help- 
your-fellow  feeling,  be  he  friend  or  enemy,  that 
crops  out  in  any  time  of  crisis.  Illustrated 
quite  well  by  the  following  quite  human  inci- 
dent which  I  give  currency  from  personal 
knowledge :  — 

For  the  purpose  of  this  relation  we  will  call 
them  Eb  and  Lew.  Well,  it  so  fell  out  that  Eb 
and  Lew  had  not  spoken  to  each  other  for  years, 
a  quarrel,  no  doubt,  over  lot-lines,  or  shore- 
front  rights,  or,  what  is  more  probable,  lob- 
ster traps,  —  nobody  knew  just  what.  One 
fall  day  a  heavy  norther  came  howling  down 
through  the  harbor  and  a  lot  of  things  afloat, 
cars,  dories,  skiffs  and  larger  craft,  —  those 
that  did  not  fetch  up  on  the  two  points,  — 
were  blowing  out  to  sea.  Eb  was  down  on  the 
[63  ] 


The  Latchstring 


beach,  just  lookin',  secure  in  the  comforting 
thought  that  his  little  squadron  had  been 
hauled  out  for  repairs  the  day  before  and  was 
high  and  dry  away  from  trouble.  A  glance 
over  the  turbulent  waters  showed  him  that  the 
new  auxiliary  sloop  of  his  old  enemy  Lew, 
built  up  Bristol  way  in  the  spring,  —  and  a 
good  'un,  —  yes,  sir,  a  good  'un,  even  if  Lew 
did  own  her,  —  was  laboring. 

"Dragging  by  gum,"  says  Eb  to  himself  in 
accumulating  agitation.  "Ain't  half  scope 
enough  to  her  moorin'-rope  —  the  dum  fool ! 
When  that  rock  fetches  up  she's  a  goner, 
sure's  shootin'." 

No  forecast  ever  came  more  quickly  true. 
She  soon  stopped  dragging,  there  was  one  sud- 
den and  mighty  strain,  the  mooring-line  parted 
and  away  went  the  Winnie  and  Freddie  — 
built  up  Bristol  way  last  spring  —  sideways 
down  the  gale. 

Enter  now,  left  center,  down  the  shore,  Lew 
in  accumulated  agitation.  Eb  thus  broke  the 
silence  of  years :  — 

[64] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

"Hi,  Lew,  up  to  my  fish-house  and  git  that 
big  coil  of  throat  halyards.  I  '11  git  a  dory  off. 
We '11  git  'er  yet!" 

Both  were  soon  in  effective  action.  The  big 
coil  produced,  the  dory  tugged  down,  and  off 
went  the  ancient  enemies  on  their  common 
errand  of  salvage,  Eb,  being  a  few  years  older 
and  of  wider  water  experience,  taking  the 
laboring  oar  and  general  charge  of  the  expedi- 
tion. The  stern  of  the  sloop  caught  on  a  rock 
near  the  western  entrance  of  the  harbor.  She 
turned  end  for  end,  cleared,  and  was  again  sid- 
ling down  the  increasing  wind  and  out  to  sea. 
But  it  gave  them  time.  Eb's  stroke  was  not 
of  the  Charles  Courtney  sweep,  but  it  arrived 
in  power  and  speed  and  soon  landed  Lew  on 
the  bows  of  his  sloop. 

"Crank  Jer,"  he  shouted,  "crank  'er  — 
quick." 

"Ain't  no  gas,"  answered  Lew,  "an'  she 
won't  spark." 

"Take  a  hitch  around  the  mast  and  git  back 
here.  Quick." 

[65  ] 


"The  Latchstring 


It  was  beyond  human  effort  to  tow  her  in 
all  that  wind,  but  by  dint  of  Eb's  hard  pulling 
they  finally  got  her  headed  about  toward  the 
big  island  shore  at  a  distance  they  thought  the 
line  would  cover,  and  then  rowed  in,  paying 
out  the  big  coil.  At  last,  both  breathing  hard 
and  almost  exhausted,  they  landed  in  the  sea- 
weed with  just  enough  of  the  throat  halyards 
left  to  take  a  turn  around  a  sharp  rock.  A 
dozen  or  more  of  the  neighbors  who  had  come 
down  to  watch  proceedings,  cheer  on  the  men, 
and  give  advice,  now  lent  a  hand,  and  the 
Winnie  and  Freddie  —  built  up  Bristol  way 
last  spring  —  was  soon  warped  in  under  the 
lee  to  safety.  She  had  been  caught  just  in  time, 
and  but  for  the  superhuman  efforts  of  his  old 
enemy,  Lew's  big,  new  auxiliary  would  have 
gone  to  sea  and  the  bottom.  Nine  hundred 
and  seventy-five  dollars  —  without  the  engine 
—  saved  —  and  Eb  thar  done  it.  And  at  a 
cost  of  great  energy  and  marine  skill,  a  broken 
oar  and  two  thole-pins,  a  smashed  gunwale,  a 
sprained  wrist,  and  no  pride  at  all. 
f  66  1 


COAST-LINE   CONTRASTS 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

The  neighbors  glanced  at  the  two  men 
sitting  on  near-by  rocks  panting  and  spent, 
cast  knowing  looks  among  themselves,  and 
then  one  after  another  walked  quietly  and 
stiffly  up  the  hill.  Silence  is  best  in  the  presence 
of  true  heroism. 

With  elbows  on  his  knees,  his  head  bowed 
down  between  his  hands,  Lew  looked  up  and 
over  at  Eb.  Just  looked.  That  was  all.  Eb 
arose  in  the  halo  of  an  ultimatum. 

"Dum  it,  Lew,  give  'er  more  scope  next 
time.  Born  right  'ere  on  this  island  and  don't 
know  more'n  that." 

And  passed  on,  limping  up  the  slimy  rocks. 
The  old  relations  were  at  once  resumed  and 
they  have  n't  spoken  since. 

Have  the  boy  call  you  at  White  Head  if  you 
happen  to  be  making  for  eastern  Maine  in  the 
comfortable  Boston  boat.  An  early  morning 
glimpse  of  Penobscot  Bay  and  all  the  varied 
picturesqueness  up  by  Rockland  Breakwater, 
with  its  monster  modern  hotel  and  well- 
[67] 


T*he  Latchstring 


groomed  grounds,  Camden,  Belfast,  and  up 
the  river  to  Bucksport  and  Bangor  will  repay 
the  laziest  sleeper.  You  will  certainly  be  fully 
awake  and  alive  when  you  reach  Bangor,  for 
it  is  quite  the  livest  and  most  cosmopolitan 
city  in  eastern  America,  and  always  interest- 
ing whatever  the  season.  Here  you  will  find 
the  red-shirted  lumberman  and  his  employer, 
who  knows  his  Ibsen  and  his  Strand,  playing 
pitch  or  pinochle  in  a  spirit  of  equality  and 
friendly  competition,  and  you  feel  that  the 
brotherhood  of  man  is  real  and  not  a  dream 
of  the  idealist. 

Once  we  sailed  wing  and  wing  up  Penobscot 
Bay  in  a  big  schooner  yacht  before  a  gentle 
southerly,  and  played  bridge  out  on  deck  all 
the  way  to  anchorage  in  Camden  Harbor. 
Quite  the  acme  of  outdoor  delight  and  the  rare 
combination  of  beautiful  scenery  and  fickle 
chance.  We  even  forgot  luncheon  and  lunch- 
eon's preliminaries. 

Beginning  at  Rockland  and  Camden,  we 
come  fairly  upon  the  scenery  of  sea  and 
[  68  ] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

mountain  combined,  with  always  here  and 
there  a  wooded  island  in  the  vision,  and  now 
and  then  one  of  Maine's  many  lakes.  These 
shores  of  Penobscot  Bay  are  a  revelation  to  the 
lover  of  natural  phenomena.  A  friend  of  mine 
who  made  the  trip  by  automobile  in  a  day  last 
summer,  from  Falmouth  Foreside  on  Casco 
Bay  down  through  Lincoln  and  Knox  Coun- 
ties, along  that  wonderful  road  from  Camden 
to  Belfast,  through  Searsport,  across  the  Pe- 
nobscot at  Bucksport,  and  on  to  Bar  Harbor, 
told  me  on  his  return  that  he  had  never  taken 
a  day's  ride  in  his  life  more  remarkable  for  the 
wealth  and  variety  of  scenic  beauty. 

"And  this,  mind  you,"  he  said  by  way  of 
emphasis,  "after  motoring  all  last  winter  in 
Southern  France  and  along  the  Mediterranean 
shores." 

Meantime,  coming  in  from  the  sea  and  up 
the  bays,  "The  mountains  lift  their  green 
heads  to  the  skies,"  and  viewed  from  any  point 
of  the  compass,  the  scenery  never  lacks  variety 
or  stimulation. 

[69] 


The  Latchstring 

Way  up  in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  big 
bay,  a  few  miles  west  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Penobscot  River,  and  at  the  head  of  a  little  bay 
of  its  own,  sleeps  Belfast,  a  city  with  a  busy 
shipbuilding  past,  a  quiet,  restful  present,  and 
a  future  full  of  summer  hope  and  Maine-grown 
tobacco.  I  was  walking  one  soft  summer's 
day  up  one  of  her  quietest  streets  with  a 
former  United  States  Senator  from  the  West, 
when,  all  unsuspected,  we  came  head  on  to  a 
former  Senator  from  the  Far  South  whom  we 
both  knew,  but  had  not  seen  in  years. 

"Well,  you  old  rascal!  And  how  came  you 
here?  Who'd  have  thought  it?  Way  up  in 
this  corner!  A  far  cry,  Florida  to  Maine!  By 
George,  I'm  glad  to  see  you."  And  a  hearty 
handshake,  and  a  slap  on  the  back,  and  more 
"By  Georges"  —  all  quite  in  the  Albert  J. 
Beveridge  spirit  of  cordiality  and  youthful 
enthusiasm. 

"Well,  well,  I'm  glad  to  see  you  all.    If  I 
might  quote  our  distinguished  friend,  delighted, 
bully!  Come  now,  right  about,  to  lunch." 
[70] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

And  Senator  Taliaferro  led  us  down  to  the 
handsomest  and  most  charming  summer  home 
in  all  New  England,  a  rich  seafarer's  house  of 
the  last  century,  groomed  neither  too  much 
nor  too  little,  with  all  the  fine  old  lines  main- 
tained, and  landscaped  according  to  the  ideas 
of  a  Southern  gentleman  who  has  respect  for 
dignified  outdoor  beauty  and  a  Northern  past. 
Never  a  pleasanter  hour  in  Maine  than  this, 
with  comfort  and  pleasure  and  all  that  is  gen- 
tle and  true  in  hospitality  administered  by  a 
Southern  menage ',  moved  North  en  masse,  every 
year  for  five  months  of  real  living. 

Across  the  bay  and  southeast  by  Castine, 
also  heavy  with  history  and  named  for  that 
romantic  baron  from  the  Pyrenees  who  here 
married  the  daughter  of  Madockawando,  sa- 
chem of  the  Tarratines,  you  pass  down  through 
the  reaches  and  thoroughfares,  —  a  sail  fit  for 
a  king.  And  then  on  to  Mount  Desert  Island 
and  Frenchman's  Bay,  the  summer  home  of 
many  of  the  brave  and  the  fair,  where  Art 
dares  play  with  Nature  and  "groomed  sur- 


The  Latchstring 

roundings  everywhere  please  the  eye,"  noted 
the  world  over  and  called  by  many  an  experi- 
enced traveler  the  finest,  most  picturesque, 
and  most  exclusive  summer  resort  in  the  world. 

I  have  tried  —  feebly  enough  —  to  tell  you 
something  of  the  air.  I  find  in  one  of  Mr. 
Henry  van  Dyke's  delightful  vacation  vol- 
umes, this  description  of  the  life  there :  — 

"There  were  the  mountains  conveniently 
arranged,  with  pleasant  trails  running  up  all 
of  them,  carefully  marked  with  rustic  but 
legible  guide-posts;  and  there  was  the  sea  com- 
fortably besprinkled  with  islands,  among  which 
one  might  sail  around  and  about,  day  after  day, 
not  to  go  anywhere,  but  just  to  enjoy  the  mo- 
tion and  the  views;  and  there  were  cod  and 
haddock  swimming  over  the  outer  ledges  in 
deep  water,  waiting  to  be  fed  with  clams  at 
any  time,  and  on  fortunate  days  ridiculously 
accommodating  in  letting  themselves  be  pulled 
up  at  the  end  of  a  long,  thick  string  with  a 
pound  of  lead  and  two  hooks  tied  to  it.  There 
were  plenty  of  places  considered  proper  for 
[72] 


BAR    HARBOR,    WHERE   ART   DARES    PLAY   WITH    NATURE 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

picnics,  like  Jordan's  Pond,  and  Great  Cran- 
berry Island,  and  the  Russian  Tea-House, 
and  the  Log  Cabin  Tea-House,  where  you 
would  be  sure  to  meet  other  people  who  also 
were  bent  on  picnicking;  and  there  were  hotels 
and  summer  cottages,  of  various  degrees  of 
elaboration,  filled  with  agreeable  and  talkable 
folk,  most  of  whom  were  connected  by  occupa- 
tion or  marriage  with  the  rival  colleges  and 
universities,  so  that  their  ambitions  for  the 
simple  life  had  an  academic  thoroughness  and 
regularity.  There  were  dinner  parties,  and 
tea  parties,  and  garden  parties,  and  sea  parties, 
and  luncheon  parties,  masculine  and  feminine, 
and  a  horse-show  at  Bar  Harbor,  and  a  gym- 
khana at  North  East,  and  dances  at  all  the 
Harbors,  where  Minerva  met  Terpsichore  on  a 
friendly  footing  while  Socrates  sat  out  on  the 
veranda  with  Midas  discussing  the  great  auto- 
mobile question  over  their  cigars." 

Poor  man !  How  he  must  miss  his  Maine  this 
summer,  pegging  away  there  in  war-stricken 
Europe!  And  why  have  not  the  war  lords  taken 
[73  ] 


The  Latchstring 

more  to  heart  his  charming  outdoor  books  and 
ere  this  softened  to  peace? 

And,  more  recently  from  Mr.  Gouverneur 
Morris :  — 

"Almost  every  step  toward  the  summit  of 
Newport  is  worthy  of  a  pause.  From  no  other 
mountain  in  this  world,  I  think,  is  so  beautiful 
a  view  of  ocean  and  bays,  of  wooded  islands 
and  ships,  and  of  other  mountains  so  swiftly 
and  gloriously  expanded.  You  should  pick 
champagne  weather  for  the  climb,  and  it  should 
not  be  any  steadfast  business  with  the  nose 
held  to  the  path,  but  a  long,  delicious,  upward 
loitering.  There  should  be  childish  feasts  upon 
blueberries,  long  silent  sittings,  ended  on  the 
man's  part  by  a  sudden  spring  to  his  feet  and 
a  confident  stretching  out  to  the  girl  of  his 
two  hands.  I  wonder  how  many  girls'  minds 
have  been  made  up  for  them  by  a  Bar  Harbor 
mountain.  Was  it  his  first  visit  to  Bar  Harbor? 
Had  he  ever  breathed  such  air?  Was  there 
any  other  place  where  the  mountains  came 
straight  up  out  of  the  ocean,  where,  in  short, 
[74] 


Kittery  to  Sail  Rock 

mountain  air  and  ocean  air  are  combined?  In 
that  climate  real  weariness  is  impossible.  The 
heart  may  bump  and  the  lungs  pump,  but  a 
few  moments'  rest  and  the  short  way  home  is 
the  one  thing  you  want  to  avoid." 

These  descriptions  are  so  much  better.  All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  get  real  writers  to  Maine. 
They  will  do  the  rest. 

Now,  out  to  the  eastward  again  and  down 
the  jagged  coast  of  Washington  County,  "the 
southeast  corner  of  the  State  of  Maine,  a  happy 
remnant  of  the  ancient  wilderness."  Not  for- 
getting Cutler,  of  course,  where  Rufey  and  his 
father  sailed  out  of  the  harbor,  across  two 
pages  of  the  Coast  Pilot  and  were  lost  in  the 
fog,  but  not  to  story  and  tradition.  On  and  on 
to  Lubec  and  Eastport  —  and  then  that  little 
bit,  hardly  big  enough  for  a  seal  or  a  gull,  Sail 
Rock,  the  tip  end  of  the  United  States  of 
America. 

Surely,  a  remarkable  coast.  No  country  has 
its  superior,  no  State  its  equal.  I  have  not  de- 
scribed it.  Merely  started  you  along  the  path. 


THE  GAME-FISH   PEERAGE 

SOMEWHERE  in  the  making  of  many  fishing 
books,  of  which  there  is  no  end,  some  one  who 
knows  has  said  that  the  trout  aristocracy  is 
to  be  found  in  the  clear,  cool  waters  of  Maine, 
particularly  of  northern  Maine.  Precisely  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  salmon  aristocrat 
and  the  black  bass  aristocrat.  These  three 
are  the  true  game  fish  of  the  great  Northeast. 
Some  sportsmen  specialize  on  one,  many  be- 
come expert  in  fishing  for  two,  some  enjoy 
casting  and  trolling  for  all  three,  though  I  have 
observed  as  an  amateur  that  the  trout  and  sal- 
mon fishermen  do  not  take  kindly  to  bass,  while 
the  bass  fisherman,  as  a  rule,  holds  to  his  own. 

I    presume    the    top-notcher   of   the   finny 

nobility,  in  the  opinion  of  all  who  make  angling 

both  a  recreation  and  an  aim  in  life,  is  the  sea 

salmon  —  Salmo  salar,  to  give  the  scientific 

[76] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

name,  since  we  are  speaking  of  real  blue  blood. 
A  lordly  fish  is  this,  both  for  game  and  for  food, 
found  in  Europe  only  in  waters  north  of  Spain 
and  in  Atlantic  America  in  waters  north  of 
the  forty-first  parallel,  now  almost  entirely  in 
Maine  and  the  Maritime  Provinces.  The  far- 
famed  Oregon  salmon  is  of  the  same  imme- 
diate family,  but  darker  in  hue,  and,  my  friend 
the  globe-trotting  epicure  tells  me,  less  deli- 
cate in  flavor.  The  salmon  waters  there  can 
certainly  be  neither  clearer  nor  colder.  The 
man  or  woman  who  has  hooked  and  landed  one 
of  these,  especially  in  swift  water,  has  not  lived 
in  vain.  This  is  not  speculation.  It  is  testi- 
mony. Have  you  never  heard  one  of  those 
stories?  As  for  food,  its  delicate  pink  flesh, 
with  the  first  green  peas,  graces  every  Fourth 
of  July  table  in  Maine  as  the  piece  de  resistance, 
not  only  of  the  dinner,  but  of  the  season.  It 
is  an  inglorious  Fourth,  indeed,  when  there  is 
no  salmon.  Without  it  the  holiday  would  be 
as  colorless  and  void  as  a  New  England  Thanks- 
giving without  a  native  turkey. 
[77] 


The  Latcbstring 


The  best  sea-salmon  fishing  across  the  Cana- 
dian line  is  to  be  found  largely  in  sections  of 
rivers  and  streams  privately  controlled  by 
clubs  and  individuals.  The  waters  of  Maine 
are  free  to  all  comers,  and  the  most  famous 
sea-salmon  pools  in  the  East  are  those  at  Ban- 
gor  on  the  Penobscot  and  at^Calais  on  the  St. 
Croix  River,  where  in  April  every  year  there 
congregate  the  most  skillful  and  persistent  of 
amateur  and  professional  anglers  to  try  their 
luck  with  the  gamiest  of  all  game  fish  in  their 
spring  migration  from  the  sea.  The  first  Pe- 
nobscot salmon  taken  at  the  Bangor  pool  each 
year  marks  an  event  in  the  Maine  calendar. 
Sometimes  it  goes  to  the  White  House,  some- 
times to  the  market.  If  the  latter,  it  usually 
brings  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  pound.  The  access- 
ibility and  other  conveniences  of  these  two 
pools,  for  the  big  city  man  who  wishes  to  get 
away  for  a  few  days  of  early  fishing,  are  not  the 
least  of  their  attractions.  They  are  said  to  be 
the  best  free  sea-salmon  waters  within  easy 
distance  from  the  great  centers. 
[  73  ] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

Time  was  when  these  salt-water  royalties 
were  taken  in  large  numbers  all  along  the 
Kennebec,  but  either  on  account  of  the  saw- 
dust or  other  waste  matter  from  the  mills,  or 
because  of  some  mysterious  whim  of  a  fish 
whose  idiosyncrasies  the  scientist  has  not  yet 
completely  learned,  they  no  longer  frequent 
these  waters.  This  is  one  of  the  piscatorial 
mysteries  because  the  conditions  of  the  Kenne- 
bec waters  are  not  unlike  those  of  the  Penob- 
scot  and  St.  Croix.  History  relates  that  the 
founder  of  Gardiner,  for  whom  the  city  was 
named,  located  his  colonial  estate  at  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Kennebec  and  the  Cobbosseecontee 
stream  because  the  salmon  spearing  was  so 
good  there.  This  grand  mansion,  built  in  1754, 
still  stands  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river.  The 
whole  place  is  maintained  by  the  descendants 
in  a  manner  befitting  its  history  and  dignity, 
and  the  estate  is  not  only  the  oldest  of  its  kind, 
but  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  Maine.  Among 
the  old  municipal  records  is  an  original  con- 
tract with  the  laborers  in  which  they  covenant 
[79] 


"The  Latchstring 

to  work  for  the  owner  and  his  interests,  pro- 
vided they  are  not  compelled  to  have  salmon 
more  than  twice  a  day.  Apparently  the  market 
quotation  in  those  days  did  not  reach  the 
three  figures  of  these. 

Illustrating  the  persistency  and  other  forces 
of  habit  in  the  gastronomical  departments  of 
large  cities,  you  will  note  even  to-day  in  the 
fish  courses  of  the  great  restaurants  of  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Chicago,  —  even  of 
Boston,  —  these  two  words,  cryptic  to  the  man 
from  Maine:  "Kennebec  Salmon."  I  do  not 
wish  to  destroy  the  illusion  of  any  metropoli- 
tan steward  who  daily  makes  up  this  interest- 
ing literature,  but  true  chronicle  compels  the 
statement  that  salmon  have  not  been  taken 
from  the  Kennebec  in  many  years,  certainly 
not  in  anything  approaching  market  quantities. 

Anent  the  mysteries  of  sea  salmon  I  remem- 
ber one  exciting  May  morning  about  twenty 
years  ago  on  Damariscove  Island.  The  little 
fishing  colony  there  numbers  two  or  three  men 
and  has  not  grown  in  two  decades.  It  was  the 
[  80  1 


BOOTHBAY  HARBOR,   Rl 


MAINE   TROUT 


E    FROM    EVERY   STORM 


THE    FIGHTING    LAND-LOCKED   SALMON 


"The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

custom  then,  as  now,  to  set  nets  at  the  southern 
end  of  the  island  for  deep-sea  fish  for  the  sum- 
mer people,  but  never  earlier  than  the  first 
of  July.  This  particular  year,  for  some  reason, 
a  big  net  was  put  out  one  day  early  in  May. 
Next  morning,  much  to  the  surprise  and  profit 
of  the  fishermen,  some  forty  handsome  salmon, 
weighing  from  ten  to  thirty-five  pounds,  were 
taken.  This  end  of  Damariscove  points  out 
into  the  ocean  midway  between  the  Sheepscot 
and  Damariscotta  Rivers,  while  the  entrance 
to  the  Kennebec  is  less  than  seven  miles  away. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  fish  were  on 
their  spring  way  up  these  rivers,  but  why  they 
have  never  been  taken  there  since,  in  numbers, 
although  many  early  nets  have  many  times 
been  put  out,  remains  one  of  the  deep  mys- 
teries of  the  deep-sea  salmon. 

But  fishing  in  Maine,  in  the  popular  accept- 
ance of  the  sport,  is  pursued  in  inland  waters 
and  very  largely  for  trout  and  land-locked 
salmon.  More  sportsmen  come  here  for  these 
than  for  any  other  fish,  both  for  casting  and  for 
[81  ] 


Latchstring 

trolling.  Maine  trout  are  of  the  true  variety, 
the  handsome  speckled  brook  trout,  which 
pass  down  from  the  brooks  and  small  streams 
into  the  ponds  and  lakes  as  they  grow  in  size, 
the  real  peers  of  the  family,  the  most  popular 
and  most  sought  game  fish  in  all  the  world. 
The  land-locked  salmon  —  distinguished  by 
their  Latin  name  Salmo  sebago  —  are  first 
cousins  to  the  sea  salmon,  and  both  because  the 
cool  waters  of  the  Maine  lakes  seem  to  be  their 
natural  home  and  because  in  the  last  few  years 
propagation  has  been  general  all  over  the  State, 
sportsmen  who  have  made  a  study  of  the 
geography  of  game  fish  now  assert  —  and  the 
assertion  stands  undisputed  —  that  in  no  other 
waters  of  the  world  are  these  fish  found  in 
such  large  quantities  and  size.  These  two  — 
the  first-family  trout  and  the  agile,  crafty, 
leaping,  ever-fighting,  land-locked  salmon  — 
these  two  constitute  the  inland  fishing  glory 
of  the  best  fishing  State  in  the  Union.  They 
abound  in  hundreds  —  thousands — of  streams 
and  lakes  all  over  Maine,  and  the  true  angler — 
[82] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

he  who  has  earned  what  Mr.  Henry  P.  Wells 
calls  the  title  of  nobility  —  comes  here  for  this 
king  of  sports.  And  in  the  far  north,  still  within 
the  confines  of  the  State,  there  are  scores  of 
small  lakes  and  brooks  that  have  never  yet 
been  whipped,  or  even  explored,  —  virgin 
waters  in  virgin  forests. 

There  are  five  great  geographical  divisions 
of  the  sport:  The  Sebago  Lake  region,  which 
includes  all  the  waters  of  western  Maine,  with 
the  big  lake  as  the  center  of  operations,  radiat- 
ing into  York  County  on  one  side,  Androscog- 
gin  on  the  other,  and  north  to  historic  and 
charming  Fryeburg,  through  Oxford  to  Upper 
Kezar  Pond  and  the  cold  streams  that  play 
in  and  out  of  New  Hampshire  and  feed  both  the 
Saco  and  Androscoggin.  The  wonderful  chain 
of  Rangeleys,  and  embracing  on  the  north 
Kennebago,  Parmachene,  the  Chain  Lakes, 
and  many  ponds.  The  Belgrade  Lake  region, 
the  home  of  the  black  bass,  taking  in,  on  the 
south,  Cobbosseecontee,  the  Winthrop  ponds, 
and  all  the  central  Maine  watershed  of  the 
[83  ] 


The  Latchstring 


Kennebec  River.  The  wild,  primeval,  expan- 
sive Moosehead  division,  covering  all  the  great 
game-fish  waters  of  Northern  Somerset,  Pis- 
cataquis,  and  Penobscot  Counties,  and  all  of 
Aroostook.  And  then  the  Grand  Lakes  of 
Washington  County,  bordering  the  New  Bruns- 
wick line,  where  sports  the  battling  ouananiche 
of  the  land-locked  salmon  tribe,  respected,  and 
highly  valued,  and  much  sought,  by  sportsman 
and  epicure  for  remarkable  qualities  both  of 
game  and  food. 

A  wide  expanse  of  fishing  territory  this! 
And  all,  by  reason  of  a  progressive  and  ad- 
mirably operated  transportation  system,  which 
makes  a  specialty  of  looking  after  its  fish  and 
game  patrons,  quickly,  easily,  and  most  com- 
fortably reached.  You  can  arrive  at  much  of 
it  —  in  fact  by  far  the  larger  part  —  in  a  sleeper 
or  chair  car,  in  a  night's  or  a  day's  ride  from 
Boston,  the  rarest  combination  of  genuine 
sport  and  accessibility  to  be  found  in  the 
country.  Yes,  superlatives  again.  And  why 
not? 

[84] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

Your  scientist,  the  veteran  who  begins  in 
January  to  look  over  his  rods,  his  book  of  flies 
and  left-over  leaders,  —  and  what  better  sport 
in  January,  —  will  tell  you,  with  no  little  show 
of  ceremony,  that  he  never  wets  a  line  until 
the  fish  begin  to  rise;  that  the  only  real  fishing 
is  fly  fishing;  that  no  gentleman  will  kill  a 
trout  or  salmon  by  any  other  method.  And 
so  forth,  through  a  long  category  of  anathema 
for  the  simple  hook-and-line  man,  and  ever 
with  a  smug  air  of  superiority  and  condescen- 
sion. Your  troller,  the  man  who  finds  pleasure 
in  this  kind  of  fishing  when  casting  is  out  of 
the  question,  will  extol  the  beauties  of  both 
and  wax  convincing. 

But  as  for  me,  kind  sir,  given  a  trusty  bam- 
boo of  medium  weight,  a  bait-box  of  worms 
from  behind  the  barn,  a  small  creel,  a  large 
lunch,  the  favorite  brier  and  special  mixture, 
a  book  in  the  pocket  for  an  hour  of  nicotine 
and  mental  cultivation,  a  half-dozen  miles  of 
musical  brook,  and  the  day  before  me  —  well, 
and  indeed,  moreover,  albeit,  whereas,  and  by 
[85] 


*The  Latchstring 


George  —  what  more?  A  day  that  scores  in 
the  long  calendar  of  diversified  human  in- 
terests! You  have  settled  some  problem  for 
yourself.  What  is  better,  for  some  one  else. 
You  can  always  do  that.  If  possessed  of  a 
smattering  of  botany,  you  have  had  wild 
flowers  at  first  hand  all  day.  If  a  student  of 
birds,  they  have  been  with  you  all  the  time, 
Wilson's  warbler  to  the  hermit  thrush,  singing, 
and  repeating  for  the  minutest  analysis.  These 
by  way  of  avocation.  Nature  in  all  her  moods 
has  been  yours,  with  always  the  quest  of  the 
many  spotted  trout  as  the  main  objective; 
always  the  gamble  —  so  much  a  human  in- 
stinct —  as  to  whether  he  is  in  this  pool  or 
that,  in  this  bit  of  rapids  or  under  the  rock 
below,  and  if  anywhere,  what  size.  And  then, 
as  the  sun  tips  the  hills,  back  to  the  farm,  with 
a  wealth  of  that  happy,  contented,  outdoor 
tired  feeling,  to  a  good  supper  and  an  oppor- 
tunity to  tell  of  the  day.  Indeed,  again,  and 
what  more? 

Well,  possibly  this,  if  you  would  paint  the 
186] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

lily  —  and  sometimes  one  can :  I  would  also 
have  awaiting  me  at  the  day's  end  three  auc- 
tion-bridge players  ready  to  shuffle,  cut,  deal, 
bid,  and  play  immediately  after  the  coffee  and 
during  the  pipe.  At  supper  you  have  exhausted 
your  day's  wandering.  At  least  three  times 
with  variations  have  you  told  how  you  got  the 
big  one  just  above  the  footbridge  under  the 
overhanging  roots  of  the  big  yellow  birch,  how 
you  lost  another  one  —  and  bigger,  too  — 
much  bigger  —  down  by  the  black  boulder. 
And  alas,  so  have  the  other  fellows.  There 
remains  the  lamplight  period  between  seven 
and  eleven,  full  of  interesting  possibilities. 
Once  we  had  this  conjunction  of  all  the  delights 
—  it  is  sure  to  happen  once  in  life  —  up  at 
Charles  Chandler's,  on  Cold  River,  under  the 
brow  of  old  Baldface.  "A  clear  fire,  a  clean 
hearth,  and  the  rigour  of  the  game."  With 
the  purist's  pardon,  Sarah  Battle  had  nothing 
on  us. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  a  good  day  on  the  stream 
and  soon  after  "setting  in"  we  ran  into  a  card 
[87! 


The  Latchstring 


situation  that  marks  an  epoch  in  auction  de- 
velopments. If  I  may  be  permitted  to  digress : 
My  opponent  on  the  right  dealt  and  bid  no 
trumps.  My  holdings  consisted  of  seven  clubs 
headed  by  the  ten,  three  small  spades,  two 
small  diamonds,  and  the  deuce  of  hearts  —  a 
hand  as  dead  as  an  Egyptian  mummy.  So  I 
passed.  Likewise  my  opponent  on  the  left, 
and  my  partner.  It  was  game  all,  and  the  other 
side  had  an  advanced  score  of  twenty.  Rubber, 
of  course.  I  led  my  fourth-best  club.  Dummy 
exposed  the  queen  and  nine,  the  nine  being 
played.  My  partner  covered  with  the  knave 
and  the  dealer,  fourth  hand,  took  the  trick  with 
the  ace,  still  holding  the  king.  His  long  suit 
was  seven  hearts  headed  by  the  knave,  ten. 
The  ace,  queen,  and  a  small  one  showed  in 
dummy.  The  king  was  against  him,  but  hav- 
ing control  of  every  other  suit,  he  could  well 
afford  to  take  the  finesse,  which  he  did.  My 
partner  took  with  the  king.  Then,  —  an  acci- 
dent that  often  happens  in  the  best  of  bridge 
families,  —  fully  intending  to  lead  my  suit, 
[  88] 


Game-Fish  Peerage 


he  pulled  the  wrong  card  and  led  his  one  re- 
maining heart,  the  nine.  The  dealer,  thinking 
that  a  club  had  been  returned  to  me,  played 
his  king  of  that  suit  in  a  fit  of  complete  absent- 
mindedness.  I  followed  with  a  small  spade,  and 
then  the  most  unheard-of  thing  happened. 
The  dealer,  in  continuing  abstraction  and  still 
thinking  that  clubs  were  called,  reached  for 
and  played  from  dummy  the  queen.  My 
partner's  nine  of  hearts  had  taken  the  trick. 
It  was  turned  and  quitted.  He  now  led  his 
small  club,  and  the  suit  in  this  strange  manner 
having  been  cleared  I  took  with  the  ten,  ran 
off  six  tricks  in  that  suit,  set  our  opponents  a 
hundred,  and  saved  the  rubber.  But  ere  this 
the  dealer  had  come  back  to  his  senses,  and 
endless  discussion  began.  It  is  still  going  on. 
Both  he  and  his  dummy  had  revoked  on  the 
heart  led  of  my  partner.  But  one  of  the  unal- 
terable rules  of  the  game  is  that  dummy  can- 
not revoke.  Meanwhile,  had  either  my  partner 
or  I  called  attention  to  this,  it  would  also  have 
exposed  the  revoke  of  the  dealer,  which  he 
[89] 


"The  Latcbstring 


could  then  correct  in  time,  but  which  we  were 
perfectly  justified  in  claiming.  After  an  hour 
of  fruitless  but  friendly  argument,  carried  over 
into  the  preparations  for  the  next  day's  fish- 
ing, we  finally  threw  out  the  hand  for  some 
less  prejudiced  and  more  authentic  settlement. 
Hereby  respectfully  referred  to  Mr.  Work  and 
Mr.  Denison. 

At  least  two  hundred  hopeful  fishermen  are 
in  camps,  farmhouses,  and  small  hotels  on  the 
north  and  west  shores  of  Sebago  Lake  on  the 
morning  of  April  I,  waiting  for  sunrise.  The 
law  is  off  and  the  ice  is  out.  These  are  the  out- 
riders and  advance  guard  of  an  army  of  wel- 
come invaders  all  over  the  State  who  sound 
no  retreat  until  the  law  goes  on  in  September, 
when  lines  are  reeled  in  and  the  fishing  season 
hibernates  in  pleasant  memory  until  spring. 
Very  few  of  the  early  fish  are  taken  with  a  fly, 
and  the  sport  at  Sebago  is  almost  entirely 
bait-fishing.  Here  the  troller  has  his  day  and 
is  inclined  to  lord  it  over  the  man  who  only 
casts.  For,  says  he,  he  must  not  only  possess 
[90! 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

all  of  the  fly  fisherman's  knowledge,  but  more. 
Will  they  be  taking  live  bait,  or  will  a  phan- 
tom do?  A  silver  soldier  or  a  blue-back?  A 
single  hook  or  an  archer  with  many  hooks? 
There  are  a  dozen  or  more  artificial  lures,  and 
he  has  to  apply  book  learning  and  experience 
to  his  selection.  Where  are  the  smelts  running 
to-day,  where  to-morrow?  Shall  we  try  the 
mouth  of  the  Songo  or  over  toward  Jordan's 
Bay?  These  and  many  more  questions  must 
he  decide,  meanwhile  cultivating  neck  and 
neck  with  his  skill  the  fisherman's  great  essen- 
tial —  patience. 

The  salmon  at  Sebago  are  now  becoming 
the  record  fish  of  Maine  waters.  Catches, 
though  not  many,  are  made  each  spring  weigh- 
ing from  ten  to  eighteen  pounds.  Mr.  Charles 
K.  Bispham,  of  Philadelphia,  a  skillful  and 
persistent  angler,  who  for  fifteen  years  has 
made  a  study  of  Maine  game  fish  and  will  fish 
nowhere  else,  tells  me  that  he  has  seen  on  the 
spawning  beds  Sebago  salmon  weighing  thirty 
pounds  and  more. 

[91  1 


The  Latchstring 

Up  in  the  great  Rangeley  region,  more  than 
fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea  level,  you 
will  not  only  strike  the  largest  square-tailed, 
red-spotted  trout  in  the  world,  but  you  will 
run  into  waters  where  game-fish  history  in 
Maine  really  begins.  For  more  than  a  genera- 
tion men  and  women  have  fished  these  lakes 
for  sport.  The  older  natives  can  hardly  re- 
member when  "some  one  from  away"  was  not 
fishing  in  spring  and  summer  at  the  Middle 
and  Upper  Dams. 

And  Captain  Fred  Barker,  who  as  a  boy  did 
chores  and  in  a  small  way  guiding  around  the 
lakes,  and  who  grew  up  with  the  fishing  country, 
is  historic  in  himself.  Now  he  is  a  great  landlord 
and  transportation  magnate.  And  an  author. 
Rangeley  would  not  be  Rangeley  without  him. 
And  Elliott  Russell,  too,  one  of  our  old  guides 
of  the  olden  days,  I  wonder  where  he  has  taken 
his  interesting  and  picturesque  personality, 
and  his  Kossuth  hat  and  his  home-made  knick- 
erbockers. Seems  to  me  some  one  told  me  he 
had  listened  to  the  siren  voice  of  the  Great 
[92] 


"The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

West  and  been  lured  beyond  the  Hudson. 
Wherever  he  is,  whatever  doing,  there's  a  man. 
Here's  to  him!  And  Percy  Ripley,  big-boned, 
big-muscled,  the  most  powerful  and  enduring 
human  I  ever  saw,  who  could  tramp  the  woods 
all  day  and  all  night,  half  the  time  carrying  a 
canoe  and  part  of  the  luggage.  Some  one  has 
put  him  on  canvas  in  oils,  standing  erect,  alive 
and  strong,  on  a  big  rock  with  a  big  kit  on  his 
back.  It's  a  classic.  And  Jim  and  Archie  — 
ah,  but  these  pages  are  too  short.  Big  citizens, 
characters,  personages,  these  and  their  like. 
Guides  can  make  or  break  the  holiday  of  a 
whole  party.  The  breakers  have  gone  pretty 
much  on  the  rocks.  Elimination  has  left  a 
hardy  race  of  real  men.  So  long,  and  good  luck 
to  those  companions  of  the  woods  and  lakes 
and  streams  who  have  shared  our  beds  and 
board,  and  tobacco,  and  have  made  livable, 
useful,  and  bright  many  days  in  the  wilderness. 
Live  they  long  and  prosper! 

Way  back  in   1868  the  Oquossoc  Angling 
Association,  among  the  first  and  most  notable 
[93  1 


The  Latchstring 

of  the  fishing  clubs  of  the  country,  was  formed 
and  located  at  Indian  Rock  on  the  north  shore 
of  Mooselookmeguntic.  George  Shepherd  Page, 
of  New  Jersey,  was  its  first  President,  and 
Louis  B.  Reed,  of  New  York,  its  first  Vice  Pres- 
ident. The  late  Senator  William  P.  Frye,  who 
loved  the  sport  of  fly  fishing  and  for  more 
than  half  a  century  made  it  his  one  recreation, 
—  always  at  Rangeley,  —  was  one  of  the 
charter  members.  His  log  camp  stands  on  a 
huge  rock  directly  across  from  the  Oquossoc 
Club  on  the  Cupsuptic  Straits,  and  although 
one  of  the  oldest  on  the  lakes  is  still  a  model  of 
modern  convenience  and  comfort  and  an  excel- 
lent example  of  a  fisherman's  paradise  in  the 
Maine  woods. 

Mr.  Frye  would  leave  any  debate  in  the 
Senate  or  any  committee  hearing  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  tell  of  his  capture  of  that  ten-and-a- 
half-pound  square-tail  which  stood  as  the 
record  for  many  years,  not  only  for  the  Range- 
leys,  but  for  the  State.  How  many  a  time 
have  I  heard  him  tell  it  to  interested  audiences 
[94] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

of  senators,  cabinet  ministers,  and  other  states- 
men —  and  always  with  fine,  eloquent  descrip- 
tion, worthy  of  his  best  campaigning  days  — 
and  there  were  none  better.  How,  standing 
early  one  morning  on  the  boat  landing  in  front 
of  his  camp,  he  spied  the  big  fellow  sunning 
himself  just  under  the  big  rock  which  you  will 
note  in  the  picture;  how,  deciding  that  his 
tackle  was  not  strong  enough  for  this  whale  of 
a  trout,  he  sent  his  guide  nine  miles  away  to 
Rangeley  town  for  a  special  rigging;  how,  after 
waiting  all  day  —  for  the  trout  did  not  move 
ten  feet  away  —  and  watching,  and  selecting 
the  psychological  moment,  he  cast  and  hooked 
him  just  before  sundown;  and  then  straight 
out  into  the  lake  to  give  him  play;  how,  after 
an  hour's  hard  battle,  taxing  an  active  sena- 
torial mentality  and  the  angler's  limitless  skill, 
he  finally  landed  him  in  the  twilight,  put  him 
in  a  tank  at  the  camp,  and  sent  him  alive  to 
Washington  to  prove  to  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  that  the  biggest  and  liveliest 
and  otherwise  best  trout  in  the  world  were  to 
[951 


The  Latcbstring 


be  found  in  the  Rangeley  Lakes.  A  famous 
tale,  and  best  of  all  so  true.  There  were  the 
guide,  the  scales,  and  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  to  prove  it. 

Perhaps  the  most  noted  trout  pool  in  the 
east  is  to  be  found  at  the  Upper  Dam,  and 
thus  Dr.  van  Dyke  described  it  sixteen  years 
ago:  — 

"The  Upper  Dam  at  Rangeley  is  the  place, 
of  all  others  in  the  world,  where  the  lunacy  of 
angling  may  be  seen  in  its  incurable  stage. 
There  is  a  cozy  little  inn,  called  a  camp,  at  the 
foot  of  a  big  lake.  In  front  of  the  inn  is  a  huge 
dam  of  gray  stone,  over  which  the  river  plunges 
into  a  great  oval  pool,  where  the  trout  assemble 
in  the  early  fall  to  perpetuate  their  race.  From 
the  tenth  of  September  to  the  thirtieth,  there 
is  not  an  hour  of  the  day  or  night  when  there 
are  no  boats  floating  on  that  pool,  and  no 
anglers  trailing  the  fly  across  its  waters.  Be- 
fore the  late  fishermen  are  ready  to  come  in  at 
midnight,  the  early  fishermen  may  be  seen 
creeping  down  to  the  shore  with  lanterns  in 
[96] 


"The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

order  to  begin  before  cock-crow.  The  number 
of  fish  taken  is  not  large,  —  perhaps  five  or 
six  for  the  whole  company  on  an  average  day, 
—  but  the  size  is  sometimes  enormous,  — 
nothing  under  three  pounds  is  counted,  —  and 
they  pervade  thought  and  conversation  at  the 
Upper  Dam  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other 
subject.  There  is  no  driving,  no  dancing,  no 
golf,  no  tennis.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  fish 
or  die." 

Both  before  and  since  then  there  has  been 
great  drain  on  all  these  waters,  the  summer 
home  of  many  hundreds  of  veteran  experts, 
but  apparently  without  the  slightest  diminu- 
tion. 

Dr.  Henshall,  in  his  interesting  contribution 
to  fishing  literature,  "Book  of  the  Black  Bass," 
calls  the  small-mouthed  black  bass,  "inch  for 
inch  and  pound  for  pound,  the  gamiest  fish 
that  swims."  And  if  this  is  your  game,  the 
Belgrade  Lakes,  Cobbosseecontee,  Marana- 
cook,  and  other  waters  of  Kennebec  County 
are  your  destination.  Square-tailed  trout  are 
[971 


"The  Latchstring 


also  found  here  in  fair  numbers  and  size,  and 
big  pickerel  and  perch,  but  the  region  is  best 
known  as  the  home  of  the  black  bass.  The 
remarkable  accessibility  of  these  waters,  with 
such  places  as  Augusta,  Waterville,  and  Win- 
throp,  with  modern  and  comfortable  hotels, 
as  centers  of  radiation  by  trolley  and  motor 
car,  places  them  among  the  most  popular  and 
frequented  big  ponds  of  the  State. 

And  now  up  the  old  Somerset  to  magnificent 
Moosehead,  and  the  more  remote  and  wilder 
lakes  of  northern  Maine,  Attean,  Chesuncook, 
Chamberlain,  Millinocket,  and  hundreds  more 
smaller  in  size  and  larger  in  name.  So  many 
apparently  that  civilized  and  Christian  names 
gave  out.  One,  way  up  in  the  far  north,  labors 
under  eighteen  letters — Chemquasabamticook. 
And  sometime  my  curiosity  will  take  me  up  to 
Stink  Pond  to  see  if  it  is  really  so. 

Moosehead  is  the  king  and  queen,  the  prince 

and  princess,  of  New  England's  inland  seas. 

It  is  Maine's  great  big  scenic  pride.    It  seems 

to  have  been  a  revelation  to  no  less  an  observer 

[98] 


I    § 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

and  traveler  than  James  Russell  Lowell,  for  in 
1853  he  came,  saw,  was  conquered,  and  wrote: 
"On  all  sides  rose  deep-blue  mountains,  of 
remarkably  graceful  outline,  and  more  for- 
tunate than  common  in  their  names.  There 
were  Big  and  Little  Squaw,  the  Spencer  and 
Lily  Bay  mountains.  It  was  debated  whether 
we  saw  Katahdin  or  not  (perhaps  more  useful 
as  an  intellectual  exercise  than  the  assured 
vision  would  have  been),  and  presently  Mount 
Kineo  rose  abruptly  before  us,  in  a  shape  not 
unlike  the  island  of  Capri.  .  .  .  We  pushed 
on.  Little  islands  loomed  trembling  between 
sky  and  water,  like  hanging  gardens.  Gradu- 
ally the  filmy  trees  defined  themselves,  the 
aerial  enchantment  lost  its  potency,  and  we 
came  up  with  common  prose  islands  that  had 
so  late  been  magical  and  poetic.  The  old  story 
of  the  attained  and  unattained.  .  .  .  The  sun 
sank  behind  its  horizon  of  pines  whose  pointed 
summits  notched  the  rosy  west  in  an  endless 
black  sierra.  At  the  same  moment  the  golden 
moon  swung  slowly  up  the  east,  like  the  scale 
l99l 


"The  Latchstring 

of  that  Homeric  balance  in  which  Zeus  weighed 
the  deeds  of  men.  Sunset  and  moonrise  at 
once.  Adam  had  no  more  in  Eden  —  except 
the  head  of  Eve  upon  his  shoulder." 

But  who  knows  ?  There  are  doubtless  modern 
Moosehead  Eves,  and  many  a  Huldy,  and  no 
better  setting  for  a  romance. 

"'T  was  kin'  o'  kingdom-come  to  look 

On  sech  a  blessed  cretur, 
A  dogrose  blushin'  to  a  brook 
Ain't  modester  nor  sweeter." 

It  was  here,  too,  that  Lowell  found  inspira- 
tion for  his  "To  a  Pine  Tree"  —  indeed,  the 
tree  itself,  for: — 

"Far  up  on  Katahdin  thou  towerest 

Purple-blue  with  the  distance  and  vast." 

Entering  this  great  lake  wilderness  by  either 
of  the  main  highways,  through  Greenville  at 
the  foot  of  the  lake,  or  Kineo  Station  midway 
its  length,  and  uninformed  about  its  true 
grandeur,  a  man's  first  thoughts  are  far  from 
fish  and  game.  The  prospect  all  about  is  wild, 
magnificent.  There  is  everything  new,  — 

ioo  ] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

sometimes  it  is  weird,  always  awesome,  to 
catch  and  hold  the  unaccustomed  eye;  the 
dark  waters  of  a  picturesque  inland  sea  bor- 
dered by  endless,  trackless  forests  whose  big 
evergreens  edge  the  shores  and  cast  far  out 
their  mysterious  shadows;  infrequent  clearings, 
green,  or  brown,  or  white,  according  to  the  sea- 
son, to  give  the  necessary  relief  and  no  more; 
and  then  all  about,  near  and  far,  one  above  the 
other,  the  mountains,  and  one,  Kineo,  of 
course,  raising  its  flinty,  hornstone  head  seven 
hundred  and  sixty  feet  right  out  of  the  center 
of  the  lake.  Reading  this  morning  from  the 
anonymous  English  gentleman  who  lives  in 
"The  House  of  Quiet,"  I  find  that  it  is  tran- 
quillizing to  the  dweller  in  a  hilly  land  to  cool 
and  sober  the  eye  occasionally  with  the  pure 
breadths  of  a  level  plain.  So,  too,  does  the  eye 
of  a  dweller  on  the  plains,  and  especially  the 
monotonous  brick  prairie  of  a  large  city,  find 
rest  and  sobering  coolness  in  a  mountain  pros- 
pect, and  through  this  there  come  new  health 
and  stimulation  to  the  fagged  brain. 


"The  Latchstring 


If  you  happen  to  be  coming  in  by  the  Kineo 
Short  Line,  you  leave  the  Belgrade  Lake  region 
at  Oakland  and  pass  up  through  Norridgewock, 
almost  directly  over  the  Sophie  May  home- 
stead, through  busy  paper-making  Madison, 
the  Ansons,  Bingham,  a  popular  trout-fishing 
center,  by  Mike  Marr's,  and  along  the  Upper 
Kennebec,  where  the  river  winds  in  and  out 
among  the  hills  and  the  real  scenery  of  north- 
ern Maine  begins.  You  are  put  down  at  a  small 
clearing  on  the  shores  of  the  lake  at  its  nar- 
rowest part,  about  equal  distance  from  either 
end  and  directly  opposite  Mount  Kineo,  the 
ancient  landmark  of  the  greatest  fishing  and 
hunting  wilderness  in  eastern  America.  This 
in  a  night  and  less  than  half  a  day  from  Broad- 
way and  less  than  a  day  from  Beacon  Hill. 
And  if,  as  you  alight,  Moosehead  happens  to 
be  in  angry  mood,  as  the  photographer  has 
caught  it,  you  have  one  of  the  grandest,  most 
superb  views  to  be  found  in  any  fresh-water 
country.  I  landed  here  one  early  fall  after- 
noon with  an  erudite  gentleman  from  Wash- 
[  102  T 


"The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

ington  who  had  never  before  been  in  Maine. 
As  we  left  the  train  fop  the  boat,  he  turned  to 
me  sharply  and  said :  — 

"And  all  these  years  I  have  known  you,  and 
you  never  told  me  about  this!  What  are  you 
Maine  people,  selfish?  You  can't  keep  that 
mountain  and  that  lake  under  a  bushel.  Strikes 
me  all  in  a  heap." 

Next  morning  to  the  summit  of  Kineo  and 
then  a  week  of  swift-water  fly  fishing  in  Moose 
River  and  the  West  Outlet.  Now  he's  an 
annual. 

Kineo  is  Abnaki  for  high  bluff,  and  years 
ago  it  was  a  resort  for  Indians  of  many  tribes 
who  came  here,  even  from  far-off  Old  Town, 
for  the  hard  rock  to  make  into  spears,  arrow- 
heads, and  other  implements  less  warlike  and 
more  domestic.  The  view  from  the  top  of  the 
mountain  is  regarded,  by  seekers  for  scenic 
wonders,  as  the  most  magnificent  in  New 
England,  grander  even  than  that  from  Mount 
Washington,  because  the  waters  of  the  lake, 
stretching  out  in  great  arms  in  almost  every 
[  103  1 


The  Latch  string 

direction,  add  variety  not  found  in  unmixed 
mountain  scenery. 

Extending  south  into  the  lake,  from  the 
base  of  this  monster  rock,  is  a  rather  broad 
tract  of  groomed  land  on  the  point  of  which 
is  located  the  modern  marvel  of  northern 
Maine,  and  the  wonder  of  landlords,  the  lar- 
gest, best-appointed,  and  most  luxurious  in- 
land-water hotel  to  be  found  on  the  continent, 
as  complete  in  its  necessary  and  comfortable 
interior  details  as  Chicago's  Blackstone,  and 
with  all  the  outdoor  accessories  that  go  with 
the  present-day  country  club.  There  are  a  golf 
course  up  and  down  the  side  of  the  mountain 
to  test  all  the  resources  of  a  Ouimet  or  a  Var- 
don;  tennis  courts  worthy  of  the  skill  of  a 
McLaughlin  or  a  Brooks;  a  yacht  club,  alive, 
up-to-date,  and  well  appointed;  rifle  ranges, 
riding  trails,  —  everything  that  makes  for  out- 
door recreation ;  and  always  big  and  little  game 
and  big  and  little  game  fish  within  easy  dis- 
tance; and  no  doubt  electric  curling-irons  and 
house  detectives,  which  Thoreau  failed  to  find, 
[  104  ] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

and  which,  with  other  luxuries  and  pleasing 
frills,  would  surely  open  the  eyes  of  Orren 
Darren,  the  first  Kineo  landlord  of  many, 
many  years  ago.  In  the  very  center  of  a 
lake  and  forest  wilderness,  otherwise  untouched 
by  the  hand  of  man,  and,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  quite  unaltered  in  its  wild  and  primeval 
aspects  by  this  great  public  estate ! 

If  you  were  to  go  around  the  corner  from 
Louis  Martin's  and  tumble  into  a  trout  brook 
bordered  by  alders,  small  birches,  skunk  cab- 
bage, and  all,  and  tumble  out  again  to  the  sad 
music  of  a  genuine  whip-poor-will,  you  would 
not  run  into  a  greater  contrast.  It  is  something 
to  experience,  remember,  and  tell  about  —  to 
lie  in  the  luxury  of  an  electric-lighted,  hair- 
mattressed,  soft-sheeted,  and  otherwise  mod- 
ern bed,  after  calling  for  the  stock  reports  and 
dismissing  the  valet,  and  listen  to  a  real  moose 
call.  It  is  also  something  to  sleep  wet  and 
bedraggled  on  a  rainy  night  under  a  birch 
canoe  and  know  that  to-morrow  you  can  have 
a  Turkish  bath  and  cultivated  mushrooms. 
[105] 


The  Latchstring 

You  step  out  of  the  peacock  alley  of  a  begin- 
ning-of-the-century  hotel,  where  you  have 
just  enjoyed  the  tremendous  importance  of 
being  paged,  into  the  hands  of  a  red-shirted 
Indian  guide,  indigenous  to  the  soil,  a  real  not 
a  stage  character,  and  the  transition  is  easy  and 
natural,  the  contrast  altogether  pleasing  and 
satisfactory.  Now  a  skunk-cabbaged  trout 
brook  would  not  suit  the  general  scheme  of 
Times  Square  at  all.  But  somehow  this  metro- 
politanly  appointed  hotel  seems  to  fit  the 
Moosehead  scenery  quite  after  the  manner  of 
my  lady's  glove. 

Ah,  but  we  had  a-fishing  gone!  Well,  they 
are  here,  in  numbers  and  of  size,  square-tailed 
trout,  somewhat  smaller  than  those  of  the 
warmer  waters  of  the  Rangeleys,  land-locked 
salmon,  and  big  togue,  the  last  named  under- 
rated by  many  fishermen,  but  with  enough 
sporting  proclivities  to  give  zest  to  any  day 
on  the  lake.  There  is  no  better  fishing  sport 
in  the  world  than  casting  a  fly  in  the  swift 
waters  of  the  rivers  and  streams  that  run  in 
[  106] 


*The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

and  out  of  this  great  lake.  A  paddle  and  pole 
up  Moose  River  to  Brassua  and  back,  for  in- 
stance, and  you  have  put  a  bright-red  mark 
in  your  calendar  of  days  of  outdoor  joy. 

The  Northeast  and  Northwest  Carries,  way 
up  at  the  end  of  Moosehead,  while  you  might 
think  them  the  omega  of  Maine's  angling 
pleasures,  are  really  but  the  portals  of  more 
extensive  and  more  wonderful  wilds.  From 
the  Northeast  you  reach  the  West  and  East 
Branches  of  the  Penobscot  and  the  far-famed 
Allegash,  while  the  Northwest  is  the  real  start- 
ing-point for  the  St.  John  River  and  the 
Canada  line.  One  remarkable  thing  about  all 
this  region  is  that  it  is  so  vast  that  its  rough 
and  primitive  character  is  quite  unchanged  by 
increasing  travel  and  a  multiplicity  of  public 
and  private  resorts.  And  in  this  connection, 
please  bear  in  mind  that  over  in  Aroostook 
County  alone  there  are  fifteen  thousand 
square  miles  of  good  fishing  territory,  an  area 
greater  than  the  entire  State  of  Massachu- 
setts, or,  as  the  guide-book  tells  us,  equal  to 
[  107  1 


The  Latchstring 

the  Bay  State,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut 
combined. 

At  one  of  the  public  camps  in  the  Grand 
Lake  country  of  Washington  County  a  record 
of  more  than  five  thousand  fish  for  a  single 
season  is  reported.  This  looks  more  like 
slaughter  than  sport,  but  it  is  bringing  into 
prominence  more  and  more  each  year  a  section 
of  Maine  fishing  territory  well  known  and  well 
whipped  by  native  anglers,  but  less  famous 
than  the  other  Maine  waters  among  visitors. 
Being  so  much  nearer  the  sea  and  particularly 
under  the  influence  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy  fogs, 
the  ice  leaves  the  lakes  of  Washington  County 
two  weeks  earlier  than  at  Rangeley  or  Moose- 
head,  and  then  the  trolling,  largely  with  live 
minnows,  begins.  The  season  for  fly  fishing  in 
Grand  Lake  Stream,  the  main  outlet  of  the 
lake,  runs  through  the  month  of  June,  and  this 
is  now  called  the  best  and  most  popular  run- 
ning-water sport  in  the  State.  The  salmon  of 
this  stream  have  all  the  fighting  qualities  and 
so  many  of  the  other  characteristics  of  the 
[  108] 


The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

ouananiche  of  the  Province  of  Quebec  that 
experienced  and  much-traveled  fishermen  now 
pronounce  them  not  only  of  the  same  family, 
but  the  same  fish,  the  real  circus  man  of  the 
game-fish  class. 

If  you  can,  come  down  to  Maine  with  all 
kinds  of  tackle.  If  a  thirty-third  degree  expert, 
of  course  you  will  have  a  four-ounce  fly  rod  in 
the  outfit,  but  do  not  omit  heavier  rods  and 
the  strongest  of  rigging,  for  anywhere  at  any 
time  a  record  fish  may  surprise  and  give  you 
thrill.  Bring  all  the  trolling  lures  in  the  cata- 
logue, especially  the  archer  spinner,  and  all 
the  flies  from  the  Parmachene  Belle  to  the 
Rooster's  Regret.  Then  you  will  be  ready  for 
anything,  and  anything  is  possible  in  Maine. 
But  who  am  I  to  give  fishing  advice  to  you 
who  may  be  reading  this  and  already  know 
much  better  the  time,  the  place,  and  the  fly! 
I  will  confine  myself  to  simple  injunction: 
Make  sure  that  you  come,  for  here  await  you 
health,  joy,  the  best  of  all  outdoors,  and  an- 
gling galore.  And  lest  you  have,  perchance, 
[  109  J 


The  Latchstring 


forgotten  the  exact  time  and  some  other  things 
of  importance,  let  me  refresh  your  memory 
with  a  brief  but  official  summary  of  the  latest 
regulations. 

The  open  season  for  trout,  land-locked  sal- 
mon, and  togue  is  from  the  time  the  ice  is  out 
of  the  pond  or  lake  fished  in  the  spring  until 
September  30. 

Open  season  on  white  perch  and  black  bass, 
in  lakes  and  ponds,  from  June  20  until  Sep- 
tember 30.  The  law  provides,  however,  that 
it  shall  be  lawful  to  take  black  bass,  with  un- 
baited  artificial  flies  only,  from  the  time  the 
ice  is  out  of  the  lake  or  pond  fished  in  the  spring 
until  June  20  following. 

Open  season  on  land-locked  salmon,  trout, 
and  black  bass  in  Sebago  Lake  and  Long  Pond, 
Cumberland  County,  from  April  I  to  Septem- 
ber 30,  inclusive. 

In  Thompson  Pond,  in  Androscoggin,  Cum- 
berland, and  Oxford  Counties,  closed  season 
on  land-locked  salmon,  trout,  and  togue  is  from 
September  I  to  January  i,  of  the  following  year. 
[  no] 


"The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

In  brooks,  streams,  and  rivers,  open  season 
on  land-locked  salmon,  trout  and  (sea)  salmon 
is  from  the  time  the  ice  is  out  of  the  brook, 
stream,  or  river  fished  in  the  spring  until  Sep- 
tember 15;  on  black  bass  and  white  perch, 
from  June  20  until  September  30. 

No  land-locked  salmon  less  than  twelve 
inches  in  length,  or  trout  less  than  six  inches 
in  length,  or  black  bass  less  than  ten  inches  in 
length,  or  white  perch  less  than  six  inches  in 
length  can  be  caught,  killed,  or  had  in  posses- 
sion by  any  person;  provided,  further,  that  in 
Great,  Long,  East,  North,  Ellis,  McGraw,  and 
Snow  Ponds,  said  ponds  being  part  of  the  Bel- 
grade Chain  of  Lakes,  no  trout  less  than  ten 
inches  or  black  bass  less  than  twelve  inches  in 
length  can  be  caught  and  killed  at  any  time; 
provided,  further,  that  no  person  shall  take, 
catch,  and  kill  in  any  one  day  more  than  six 
black  bass  in  either  of  the  above-named  ponds 
or  in  Lake  Kezar  or  in  Lower  Kezar  Pond  in 
Oxford  County. 

It  is  unlawful  for  any  person  or  party  or  the 
[  in  1 


Latchstring 

occupants  of  any  one  boat,  canoe,  raft,  or 
other  vessel  or  conveyance  propelled  by  steam, 
electricity,  hand,  or  other  power,  to  catch  by 
still  or  plug  fishing,  so-called,  more  than  four 
trout  and  land-locked  salmon  in  any  one  day 
collectively,  nor  more  than  two  trout  and  land- 
locked salmon  in  any  one  day  individually, 
in  Rangeley,  Richardson,  Mooselookmeguntic 
and  Cupsuptic  Lakes,  in  Franklin  and  Oxford 
Counties. 

Land-locked  salmon  and  trout  may  be  taken 
by  artificial  flies,  until  October  I,  in  Moose 
River  between  Moosehead  Lake  and  Brassua 
Lake,  in  Somerset  County. 

Daily  limit  on  protected  fish  under  the 
general  law :  fifteen  pounds  (or  not  more  than 
twenty-five  fish,  provided  they  do  not  exceed 
fifteen  pounds  in  weight)  or  one  fish.  Sale  and 
purchase  of  land-locked  salmon,  trout,  togue, 
white  perch,  and  black  bass  are  prohibited. 

The  recreation  of  angling  is  simple  and  great, 
seductive  and  innocent,  delightful  and  useful. 


"The  Game-Fish  Peerage 

Unless  you  thus  dignify  some  of  the  very  help- 
ful and  entertaining  books  of  the  Badminton 
Library,  it  is  the  only  sport  that  can  really 
boast  a  classic  in  literature.  It  lends  itself  to 
good  thinking,  and  many  and  many  a  time  has 
inspired  fine  writing,  from  Walton,  who  gave 
to  the  world  the  classic,  to  William  Black,  who 
was  wont  to  give  to  some  of  the  finer  scenes 
of  his  novels  the  technique  of  fine  fishing.  It 
is  the  only  outdoor  amusement  that  makes 
lethargy  productive  and  solitude  harmless.  It 
needs  —  is  worth  —  a  perfect  setting.  You  will 
find  it  in  Maine. 


VI 

SHOTGUN  AND  RIFLE 

"!F  any  one  asks  you  to  go  shooting  down 
South,  take  the  next  train  for  Moose  River." 

Thus  wrote,  last  winter,  my  good  friend 
Trapper  Higgins,  of  New  York,  who  had  gone 
into  the  Carolinas  a-hunting,  to  our  good 
friends  Trapper  Winslow  and  Trapper  York, 
of  Maine,  who  had  inclined  to  stay  North  and 
let  the  hunting  fever  have  its  run  at  home. 

From  a  moose,  weight  eighteen  hundred 
pounds,  height  at  shoulder  seven  feet,  to  a 
least  sandpiper,  length  five  and  fifty  one-hun- 
dredths  inches,  is  a  far  cry  in  the  shooting 
game.  And  when  you  take  into  the  account 
all  that  fills  in  between  these  extremes  —  deer, 
bear,  fox,  coon,  rabbit,  wild  geese,  every  kind 
of  North  American  duck,  except  possibly  the 
redhead  and  canvasback,  partridge,  woodcock, 
quail,  curlew,  all  the  plovers,  and  many  other 


ROADS    LIKE   THIS   TO   THE    HUNTING   REGIONS 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

shore  birds  —  all  shot  in  Maine,  you  will 
appreciate  that  here  there  is  a  considerable 
range  of  sport,  and  variety  enough  to  suit 
every  inclination  of  the  sportsman.  What 
wonder,  then,  the  train  for  Moose  River? 

Once,  but  fully  half  a  century  ago,  the  hand- 
some and  wily  caribou  could  be  added  to  the 
list,  but  now,  for  some  mysterious  reason,  not 
fully  explained  by  the  naturalist,  they  almost 
never  venture  across  the  Canadian  line,  appar- 
ently possessing  an  acute  sense  of  definition 
quite  equal  to  the  Ashburton  Treaty.  Many 
the  hunter  and  trapper  and  woodsman  who 
saw  the  last  caribou  in  Maine.  For  instance,  I 
came  across  this  only  yesterday  in  one  of  the 
daily  newspapers,  from  an  "old  Kennebecker" : 

"Close  by  me  they  passed,  sixty  or  more, 
crossing  from  Holeb  Pond  by  the  carry  to 
Attean.  They  held  their  heads  high  and  looked 
straight  ahead,  coming  so  close  I  could  have 
touched  them.  They  traveled  ten  rods  to  my 
one.  That  was  the  last  herd  of  caribou  ever 
seen  in  Maine,  fifty  years  ago,  back  in  1865, 


"The  Latchstring 


the  year  the  war  closed,  when  we  first  lum- 
bered in  Jackman.  Strong  and  compact  as  to 
legs,  much  stronger  than  deer,  and  of  great 
endurance,  Maine  caribou  were  hunted  too 
much  and  they  got  starved  out  and  left  the 
State.  I  think  the  herd  I  saw  was  traveling  to 
New  Brunswick." 

And  many  the  hunter  and  traveler  and 
woodsman  who  insist  they  will  come  back  if  we 
but  wait  long  enough  and  keep  the  powder  dry. 
But  at  present  Maine  caribou  are  found  only  in 
the  game  laws,  which  say  they  shall  not  be  shot 
at  all  under  penalty  of  two  hundred  dollars. 

In  the  above  list  I  have  excepted  —  pos- 
sibly you  will  note  —  the  redhead  and  can- 
vasback,  two  ducks  that  belong  more  to  pran- 
dial literature  than  to  any  enumeration  of  game 
birds.  But  I  have  no  doubt  that  both  have 
been  shot  in  Maine  in  considerable  numbers, 
though  less  than  half  a  dozen  have  been  offi- 
cially reported  to  the  department  of  natural 
history  of  the  State  College.  The  mallard,  a 
tender,  vegetable-feeding  duck,  and  another 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

delight  of  the  epicure,  is  often  found  here, 
though  its  natural  spring,  summer,  and  early 
fall  home  is  much  farther  west,  about  the 
Great  Lakes.  Ten  of  the  sixteen  counties  of 
the  State  report  the  mallard  as  a  migrant  in 
various  degrees  of  rarity.  Mabel  Osgood 
Wright,  in  her  intensely  interesting  and  ex- 
haustive "Birdcraft,"  without  which  no  mod- 
ern household  is  well  ordered  and  complete, 
lists  the  mallard  only  as  a  wandering  visitor  to 
New  England  and  the  redhead  and  canvasback 
as  rare  migrants.  All  three  breed  northward 
from  all  the  Northern  States,  and  if  mallard 
so  often  in  Maine,  why  not,  now  and  then  at 
least,  redheads  and  canvasbacks? 
.  But  not  every  man  a  sailor  who  wears  a 
sailor  hat. 

Back  in  town  again  of  a  cold  late  fall  night 
—  and  hungry,  and  dining  somewhere  —  any- 
where —  in  the  vastnesses  of  that  territory 
between  Tenth  and  Fifty-ninth,  where  dining 
is  not  only  an  art,  but  an  occupation,  a  phi- 
losophy of  existence,  an  aim,  an  ambition,  a 


The  Latchstring 


life-work  —  where  the  whole  world  seems  al- 
ways to  be  eating  and  drinking  day  and  night, 
especially  night.  And  your  waiter!  You've 
had  him  before.  He  knows  you  —  calls  you 
by  name —  not  in  the  social  Monhegan  way, 
but  always  with  the  distant,  dignified,  and 
very  respectful  "Mister."  And  if  you  happen 
to  have  been  on  the  Governor's  staff,  and  thus 
possess  a  title,  he  has  divined  that  by  some 
secret  waiter's  code  and  uses  it;  and  you  are 
otherwise  welcomed  as  a  man  of  importance 
who  knows  what  and  —  a  matter  of  quite  as 
much  moment  —  how  to  order. 

"Yes,  sir,  good  evening,  sir.  Rather  cold 
to-night,  sir,"  by  way  of  preliminaries.  And 
then,  as  you  perfunctorily  glance  down  the 
menu:  "That  canvasback!  Very  nice  to-night, 
sir.  Yes,  sir,  canvasback.  And  browned  sweet 
potatoes  ?  Very  well,  sir.  Celery  —  romaine 
—  yes,  sir.  And  what  jelly  with  the  duck? 
White  currant?  Yes,  sir,  white  currant."  And 
so  on  down  through  the  cheese,  coffee,  and 
cigars  to  "Very  well,  sir.  Thank  you,  sir." 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

And  you  dine  in  state,  and  are  satisfied  — 
with  everything. 

But  while  the  sweet  potatoes  are  sweet 
potatoes,  and  the  celery  celery,  the  romaine 
romaine,  the  white  currant  jelly  white  currant, 
and  the  cheese,  coffee,  and  cigars,  cheese,  coffee, 
and  Cuban  tobacco,  a  hundred  to  one,  sir,  the 
canvasback  is  not  canvasback  at  all,  but  a 
black  duck,  which  is  not  black  at  all  but  dusky 
brown,  and  served  to  you  in  a  sufficient  degree 
of  running  red  rawness  to  command  the  price 
without  recalcitration.  But  a  black  duck,  sir, 
by  any  other  name  is  just  as  good;  always  a 
delicately  flavored  and  satisfying  bird  on  the 
table,  and  in  addition  the  favorite  of  all  true 
sportsmen;  while  the  canvasback  is  mentioned 
by  bird  historians  only  in  its  cook-book  rela- 
tion. Even  in  this  it  has  its  critics.  "There  is 
little  reason  for  squealing  in  barbaric  joy  over 
this  overrated  and  generally  underdone  bird," 
says  Dr.  Coues.  "Not  one  person  in  ten  thou- 
sand can  tell  it  from  any  other  duck  on  the 
table  and  then  only  under  the  celery  circum- 
[  119] 


The  Latchstring 


stances."  Meaning  by  the  celery  circumstances 
that  it  is  at  its  best  —  to  be  more  precise,  good 
—  only  after  feeding  on  wild  celery,  nothing 
more  than  a  tender  species  of  eel-grass,  which 
any  old  duck  will  take  when  he  can  get  it. 
Certainly  no  self-respecting  black  duck  was 
ever  known  to  fly  so  high  as  to  pass  it  by. 

The  black  duck  is  the  standard  water  fowl 
of  all  gunners  in  Maine,  and  although  classi- 
fied by  the  ornithologists  as  the  most  promi- 
nent member  of  the  sub-family  of  river  ducks, 
it  is  found  in  salt  and  fresh  water  alike,  along 
the  bays  and  marshes  of  the  coast,  and  in  the 
ponds,  rivers,  and  streams  of  the  interior  — 
all  the  way  from  the  end  of  Cape  Porpoise  to 
Squapan  and  Madawaska. 

And  since  we  are  speaking  of  dining  and  the 
like  —  and  why  not?  —  in  what  State,  pray, 
has  the  gastronomer  more,  and  more  varied, 
opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  his  peculiar 
mental  ability  and  powers  of  appetite  and  di- 
gestion? For  many  years  now  I  have  been 
bombarded  with  the  statement  at  dinner  parties, 

[    120   ] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

at  some  dinners  that  were  not  parties,  and  at 
some  parties  that  were  not  dinners,  on  other 
occasions  grave  and  gay,  by  professional, 
amateur,  and  traveling  McAllisters,  by  hotel 
stewards  and  club  superintendents,  that  in 
Baltimore  was  to  be  found  the  best  market  in 
the  world,  because  Baltimore  was  the  metro- 
politan center  of  a  large  producing  area  of 
the  greatest  table  delicacies.  But  times  have 
changed,  and  even  travelers,  and  epicures,  and 
stewards,  and  superintendents  have  learned. 
Among  those  who  know,  this  center  has  moved 
up  to  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Wild 
Goose  Club  on  the  shores  of  Moose  Pond. 
For  there,  or  thereabouts,  as  you  will  note  by 
the  map,  is  the  center  of  the  State  of  Maine. 

With  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  oyster, 
whose  blood  would  be  blue  if  he  had  any,  we 
have  all  that  Maryland  offers,  and  much  more 
and  better  conditioned.  For  instance,  our 
Maine  sportsmen  are  first  in  the  States  to  catch 
the  game  birds  in  their  fall  flights  to  the  South, 
fresh  from  the  clean,  northern  feeding-grounds. 

[    121    1 


The  Latch  string 


Our  resident  delicacies,  like  partridge,  wood- 
cock, and  venison,  roam  and  feed  over  thirty 
thousand  square  miles  of  wholesome  territory, 
two  thirds  of  it  forest  land,  much  of  it  prime- 
val. Our  sea  and  inland  fish  are  taken  from 
waters,  cleaner,  clearer,  and  colder.  It  is  an 
axiom,  both  of  the  kitchen  and  dining-room, 
that  the  farther  north  any  fruit  or  vegetable 
can  be  raised  and  ripened,  the  better  it  is.  Ask 
the  Texas  farmer  why  he  sends  way  up  to 
Aroostook  for  his  Green  Mountain  and  Cobbler 
potato  seed.  Ask  the  grocer  out  in  Seattle 
what  is  the  standard  green  corn  of  North 
America.  Who  that  has  had  his  Cape  Eliza- 
beth strawberry  for  early  breakfast  in  early 
July,  fresh  with  the  morning  dew,  will  say  there 
is  any  better  —  or  as  good  ?  As  for  those  wild 
meadow  mushrooms,  up  with  the  lark,  per- 
sonally picked  in  a  down-east  pasture,  of  a 
crisp  September  morning,  and  stewed  in  fresh 
cream,  or  broiled,  and  buttered,  and  salted, 
and  toasted  —  it's  a  pleasant  dream  come 
true. 

[  122  ] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

Likewise  a  culinary  axiom,  that  a  young  and 
fresh  Maine  lobster  taken  from  the  deep,  cold 
waters  of  the  coast,  unspoiled  by  pound,  car, 
or  transportation,  has  no  superior  in  the  world, 
and  no  equal  except  in  near-by  Nova  Scotia 
where  the  shellfish  conditions  are  identical.  I 
have  seen  many  barrels  of  them  on  shore 
steamers,  barrels  especially  made  with  com- 
partments for  ice,  marked  for  Cincinnati, 
Chicago,  Kansas  City,  and  even  for  far-off 
Denver.  Poor  Denver!  Will  she  ever  know? 
And  lest  you  should  be  in  some  doubt  as  to 
exactly  what  she  should  know,  let  me  call  to 
your  attention  that  it  is  the  consensus  of  all 
great  and  well-tutored  modern  minds  that  a 
lobster  should  be  eaten  right  out  of  the  water 
and  right  out  of  the  shell,  and  reaches  its  great- 
est height,  in  fact  the  very  pinnacle  of  perfec- 
tion, only  at  one  of  Captain  Free  McKown's 
clambakes  close  down  to  the  water's  edge. 

There  is  no  fish  that  improves  with  the  hours 
after  taking  unless  it  be  the  sea  salmon,  and 
about  that  the  great  modern  minds  are  in 
[  123  1 


"The  Latchstring 


some"  conflict,  though  there  is  no  reasonable 
contention  that  it  is  any  better  after  a  day  out 
of  water.  Nor  is  there  any  diversity  of  views 
about  the  comparative  merits  of  the  sea  sal- 
mon taken  from  Maine  waters.  It  brings  the 
highest  price,  is  the  delicate  pink  flower  of  the 
whole  salmon  family,  and  gets  a  unanimous 
vote  from  those  who  can  qualify  at  the  food- 
fish  polls.  So  does  the  down-east  clam,  and  the 
scallop  now  being  found  in  quantities  along 
the  Casco  Bay  shores  and  up  the  shorter  salt- 
water rivers. 

There  is  no  shad  quite  so  good  as  that  from 
the  Nonesuch,  a  small  marsh  river  of  Cumber- 
land County.  The  fish  are  known  in  the  mar- 
ket by  its  name,  and  the  most  common  method 
of  catching  them  is  called  "bump  fishing,"  at 
night.  A  long  pole  with  a  large  round  hoop 
having  a  net  attached  is  placed  in  the  crotch  of 
a  stick  on  shore.  The  outer  end  is  lowered  into 
the  water  and  the  net  sags  with  the  tide.  The 
shad,  coming  in  with  the  flood  or  going  out 
with  the  ebb,  run  into  the  net  and  the  fisher- 
[  124  ] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

man  at  once  knows  that  he  has  a  "bump." 
Quickly  turning  the  pole,  hoop  up,  and  using 
the  crotched  stick  as  a  fulcrum,  he  lifts  the 
net,  swings  it  inshore,  and  the  best  of  dinners 
is  his.  This  method  is  used  both  by  profes- 
sionals and  amateurs,  and  during  the  shad- 
running  season  in  the  spring  the  little  river, 
lighted  by  torches  on  either  side  for  a  mile  or 
more,  presents  a  picturesque  appearance. 

And  then  suppose  that  your  own  particular 
fondness  in  this  particular  department  of  life 
happens  to  be  for  brook  trout.  Where  can  you 
find  higher  quality,  where  more  quickly,  more 
easily,  or  more  pleasantly  reach  satiety? 

"Let  me  fix  one  my  way  this  noon,"  said  the 
guide  to  us  one  morning  while  we  were  having 
phenomenal  luck  on  one  of  the  upper  Penob- 
scot  streams.  And  he  prepared  a  half-dozen 
half-pound  trout,  taken  from  swift  water,  —  we 
were  four  in  the  party,  —  for  a  feast,  Lucullian 
in  conception  and  execution,  that  not  Mr. 
Sherry,  nor  Mr.  Delmonico,  nor  Mr.  Oscar 
could  surpass  or  even  duplicate.  As  guides 
[  125  ] 


The  Latchstring 

will,  in  some  mysterious  manner,  he  produced 
a  hardwood  plank  and  to  this  nailed  the  fish, 
tails  up.  After  spreading  them  liberally  with 
butter  and  salt,  he  placed  the  end  of  the  plank 
in  a  tin  basin  close  up  to  the  outdoor  fire,  on 
the  windward  side,  the  basin  being  used  to 
catch  the  melting  butter  as  it  ran  down  over 
the  trout,  to  be  served  later  as  a  sauce.  Just 
before  the  process  of  cooking  was  completed 
he  moved  the  plank  around  for  a  few  moments 
to  the  leeward  side  of  the  fire,  "just  to  get 
that  smoky  flavor,"  he  explained,  and  then 
served  to  us,  with  roasted  potatoes  and  green 
corn,  a  dish  of  planked  brook  trout  which  no 
pen  can  describe  and  no  billionaire's  million- 
aire chef  ever  imitate. 

The  only  real,  serious,  downright,  dyed-in- 
the-wool  professional  epicure  I  ever  knew,  the 
only  man  I  ever  met  who  seemed  to  be  always 
traveling  or  sending  over  the  world  for  rare  and 
good  things  to  eat,  once  told  me  that  he  con- 
sidered the  American  golden  plover  the  best 
and  most  delicate  game  bird  that  ever  graced 
[  126] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

a  table.  Furthermore,  that  this  was  also  the 
opinion  of  all  the  other  charter  members  of  the 
guild.  Well,  here  is  the  American  golden  plover 
to  be  bagged  in  Maine  in  all  his  glory.  And 
to  have  Win  Pillsbury  call  them  down  to 
trollers  on  the  Scarboro  marshes  along  with  a 
flock  of  winters,  and  later  on  serve  them  for 
dinner,  is  a  liberal  education  in  good  sport  and 
high  living.  If  September,  the  usual  month 
of  the  plover's  fall  migration,  happens  to  be 
stormy,  the  golden  variety  are  often  found  in 
flocks  on  the  Maine  marshes  and  sandspits. 
But  if  calm  and  pleasant,  they  fly  south  far 
out  over  the  Gulf  of  Maine  and  only  the 
stragglers  find  their  way  inshore. 

There  are  three  hundred  and  twenty  differ- 
ent species  of  birds  officially  reported  as  posi- 
tively occurring  within  the  limits  of  Maine, 
and  in  the  list  all  the  worth-while  North 
American  game  birds.  Many  more  than  this 
number  have  doubtless  been  seen,  but  unrecog- 
nized and  unclassified.  Professor  Asa  Lane, 
gentle  soul,  who  not  only  had  an  unerring 
[  127  1 


"The  Latchslring 

instinct  about  birds  and  an  abiding  love  for 
their  study,  but  was  also  thoroughly  versed  in 
their  habits  and  geographical  distribution,  once 
told  me  that  in  the  Belgrade  Lake  region  in 
June  could  be  found  the  greatest  variety  of 
feathered  neighbors  of  any  equal  area  in  the 
United  States.  Some  of  our  coast  counties  — 
Knox,  for  instance  —  report  two  hundred  and 
fifteen  species,  and  Cumberland  more  than 
two  hundred.  The  State  is  the  main  highway 
for  all  the  shore  migrants,  and  in  addition  the 
most  eastern  meeting-point  of  both  shore  and 
inland  birds  resident  in  Canada  on  the  north 
and  in  the  warmer  regions  to  the  south.  It 
therefore  has  ornithological  interest  and  im- 
portance, and  indeed  reputation,  quite  up  to 
its  other  outdoor  distinctions. 

It  is  also  rich  in  Northern  flora,  variety,  and 
quality,  with  its  own  temperate  climate  and 
variety  of  soil,  and  possessing  also,  as  in  the 
case  of  birds,  part  of  the  Canadian  and  Alle- 
ghanian  characteristics.  It  is  the  home,  per- 
manent and  temporary,  of  many  an  amateur 
[  128  1 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

botanist,  and  even  now,  as  I  write  this  far  down 
on  the  eastern  coast,  do  I  see  through  my  open 
window  two  interesting  and  apparently  much 
interested  ladies,  one  from  the  Far  South,  the 
other  from  the  Far  North,  with  opera  glasses, 
bird-,  flower-,  fern-,  and  note-books,  in  the 
useful  and  delightful  quest  of  Maine  rest  and 
health,  and  easily  obtained  natural  education. 
Big  game  is  the  big  quarry  of  the  late  fall 
hunter  in  Maine,  and  of  course  a  moose,  if 
possible,  is  the  capital  prize.  It  is  more  than 
possible,  in  many  places  almost  a  moral  cer- 
tainty. But  moose  are  protected  for  the  cur- 
rent four  years  by  a  law  of  the  last  legislature 
which  is  expected  still  further  to  increase  their 
kind.  There  are  some  public  camps  in  the 
State  where,  I  am  told,  a  moose  has  been  "guar- 
anteed" within  five  days  after  registering,  and 
others  where  two  deer  are  still  promised  in 
the  same  manner,  the  legal  limit  for  a  single 
sportsman.  This  is  quite  the  reverse  of  good  ex- 
ample in  sport,  and,  fortunately,  not  common. 
It  smacks  too  much  of  royal  drives  abroad 
[  129  ] 


The  Latchstring 


where  game  beasts  and  birds  are  sometimes 
paraded  to  slaughter  by  kings  and  princes 
without  even  a  sporting  chance  for  life.  The 
quest  of  bird,  or  beast,  or  fish,  for  food  —  no 
more  —  is  really  the  national  game  —  not 
poker,  not  baseball.  As  a  gambling  proposition 
it  meets  all  the  necessary  chance  requirements, 
and  as  to  skill  ranks  with  the  best.  With 
its  all  outdoors  attachments  it  drives  Wall 
Street  to  the  wall  and  a  deck  of  cards  into  the 
fireplace.  I  can  well  understand  from  a  com- 
mercial standpoint  how  a  man  can  continu- 
ously —  every  deal  —  sit  behind  four  aces  with 
Christian  resignation,  but  I  cannot  compre- 
hend it  as  a  game.  I  know  a  certain  man  not 
far  away  who  fishes  a  certain  brook  faith- 
fully every  year,  never  gets  a  bite  there,  and 
never  counts  the  day  lost.  If  all  one  desires  is 
to  be  "guaranteed"  venison,  why  not  the 
market?  What  does  hunting  mean,  anyway? 

The  only  thing  good  about  the  proposition 
is  that  it  can  probably  be  fulfilled.   For  it  is 
a  prevailing  belief  among  experienced  guides 
[  130  1 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

and  other  observers  who  have  only  scientific 
interest  in  the  subject  that  big  game  in  the 
eastern  country  is  increasing  and  in  places, 
notably  in  the  St.  John  River  valley  and  along 
the  New  Brunswick  border,  rapidly  increas- 
ing. The  wisdom  of  Maine's  restrictive  laws 
on  large  game  becomes  each  year  more  and 
more  apparent.  While  caribou  seem  to  be 
possessed  of  some  sort  of  boundary-line  animal 
instinct  and  a  preference,  for  the  present  at 
least,  for  the  northern  side,  moose  and  deer  are 
roaming  across  from  the  Provinces  in  larger 
numbers  and  adding  greatly  to  the  possibilities 
of  Maine  sport.  Meanwhile  bear  hunting  in  the 
State  is  greatly  on  the  increase  and  fast  becom- 
ing one  of  the  standard  big-game  recreations. 
More  black  bear  were  shot  last  year  than 
moose.  They  seem  to  be  multiplying  in  almost 
every  wooded  section  of  the  State,  reports  of 
the  larger  increases  coming  from  the  great 
forest  tracts  north  of  Moosehead  and  in  the 
Grand  Lake  wilds  of  Washington  County. 
This  is  the  official  big-game  report  of  the 


The  Latchstring 


State  Commission  for  the  last  shooting  season 
when  moose  were  included,  the  fall  of  1914:  — 

Deer  reported  killed  and  shipped 5296 

Deer  reported  killed  and  not  shipped 2140 

Moose  reported  killed  and  shipped 95 

Moose  reported  killed  and  not  shipped 38 

Bears  reported  killed  and  shipped 130 

Bears  reported  killed  and  not  shipped , 61 

Thus  making  7436  official  deer,  133  moose, 
and  the  surprisingly  large  number  of  191  bears. 
But  official  statements  always  fall  short  of 
the  complete  story.  They  do  not  take  account 
of  all  the  big  game  consumed  in  camp,  and  it 
is  quite  likely  to  be  among  the  human  prob- 
abilities that  sporting  exuberance  and  an  am- 
bition for  records  to  tell  about  often  lead  to 
forgetfulness  in  the  matter  of  reporting  to  the 
Commission. 

Maine  moose  in  summer  and  in  the  fall  seem 
to  be  animals  of  a  different  family  so  far  as 
wildness  is  concerned,  as  if  they  knew  what 
was  open  and  what  close  time.  This  idea  car- 
ried to  its  logical  conclusion,  and  we  shall  have 
to  drive  them  off  the  lawn  before  the  four  years 
of  protection  have  passed.  They  are  easily 
I  132] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

found  in  the  wanner  months  and  often  seen 
by  woodsmen  on  the  edges  of  lakes  trying  to 
shake  off  and  drown  out  the  insect  pests  by 
which  they  are  annoyed  much  more  than 
other  big  game;  while  in  November  and  De- 
cember they  are  wild  and  wary  and  run  from 
man  as  they  try  to  run  from  flies  in  the  sum- 
mer. It  is  quite  easy  to  understand,  therefore, 
that  the  photograph  accompanying  this  chap- 
ter was  taken  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  which  is 
sure,  in  ninety-nine  years  out  of  a  hundred,  to 
be  the  hottest  day  of  the  year  in  Maine.  Dr. 
Heber  Bishop  was  able  to  get  a  moving  pic- 
ture of  a  moose  swimming  a  pond  under  simi- 
lar circumstances,  the  canoe,  with  the  machine 
and  operator  in  the  bow  and  an  Indian  paddler 
in  the  stern,  following  the  animal,  apparently 
not  much  frightened,  to  the  shore.  I  saw  this 
film  in  exhibition  last  winter  and  thought  it 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  interesting 
natural  history  reproductions  that  could  be 
shown.  But  for  me  it  took  away  much  of  the 
romance  of  the  deep  woods  and  some  of  the 
[  133  1 


The  Latchstring 

halo  of  fascinating  mystery  that  always  sur- 
rounds big  game.  What  next,  I  wondered! 
Bagging  birds  from  a  monoplane,  perhaps,  or 
taking  colored  photographs  of  Rangeley  trout 
from  a  submarine.  Possibly  torpedoing  Eng- 
lish sole. 

Two  methods  of  hunting  moose  have  been 
in  vogue  in  Maine  for  many  years,  "calling" 
and  "walking  down."  The  call  is  used  in  the 
evening  or  early  morning  and  is  made  through 
a  white  birch-bark  cone  about  two  feet  long 
and  five  inches  in  diameter  at  the  base.  An 
attempt  is  made  to  imitate  the  love  call  of  the 
female,  and  the  antlered  male  monster  is  thus 
lured  to  slaughter,  a  rather  mean  trick  on  so 
noble  an  animal  and  a  method  now  said  to  be 
going  out  of  fashion.  Your  true  sportsman  is 
more  and  more  coming  to  take  game  in  a 
sportsmanlike  manner  and  the  more  difficult 
method  of  "walking  down"  appeals  to  him. 

The  deer  of  Maine  are  almost  exclusively  of 
the  white-tailed  variety  and  are  found  in  every 
county  in  the  State,  with  special  laws  govern- 
[  134] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

ing  different  localities.  The  naturalist  renders 
the  opinion  that  nowhere  do  these  deer  grow 
to  larger  proportions  than  in  Maine  and  in  no 
other  State  are  they  found  in  such  good  condi- 
tion in  the  fall.  Deer  hunting  is  the  standard 
big-game  sport  of  Maine. 

An  epitome  of  the  game  laws  of  the  State, 
revised,  and  including  all  those  passed  by  the 
last  legislature,  is  not  out  of  place  here :  — 

Moose  and  caribou  protected. 

Deer :  Open  season  in  Aroostook,  Penobscot, 
Washington,  Hancock,  Piscataquis,  Somerset, 
Franklin  and  Oxford  Counties,  October  I  to 
December  15,  both  days  inclusive.  Limit  in 
these  counties,  two  deer  to  a  person  in  one 
season. 

Special  deer  laws:  Open  season  in  counties 
of  Androscoggin,  York,  Cumberland,  Sagada- 
hoc,  Lincoln,  Waldo,  Kennebec,  and  Knox 
during  the  month  of  November.  Limit  in 
these  counties,  one  deer  to  a  person  in  one 
season.  One  person  can  kill  only  two  deer  in 
all  in  Maine  in  one  season.  Deer  cannot  be 
I  i3S  1 


'The  Latchstring 

sold  or  given  away  to  be  taken  out  of  the 
State. 

No  closed  season  on  bears,  bobcats,  loup- 
cervier,  Canada  lynx,  or  weasels.  Open  season 
on  all  other  fur-bearing  animals,  November  I 
to  the  last  day  of  February. 

Rabbits:  Open  season,  October,  November, 
December,  January,  February,  and  March. 

Gray  squirrels:  Open  season,  October;  per- 
petual closed  season,  however,  in  all  public  and 
private  parks,  and  within  the  limits  of  the  com- 
pact or  built-up  portion  of  any  city  or  village. 

Bobcats,  Canada  lynx,  and  loupcervier: 
Four  dollars  bounty  on  each  of  these  animals 
killed  in  Maine. 

Sunday  is  closed  season  on  all  wild  birds  and 
wild  animals.  Penalty,  for  unprotected  birds 
and  animals,  not  less  than  ten  dollars,  nor 
more  than  forty  dollars,  and  costs  for  each  of- 
fense; for  protected  birds  and  animals,  the 
same  penalty  as  for  hunting  during  other  closed 
season.  This  law  took  effect  April  15,  1915. 

It  is  closed  season  on  wild  birds  from  sunset 
I  136] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

to  sunrise  of  the  following  morning;  and  on 
wild  animals  from  one  hour  after  sunset  until 
one  hour  before  sunrise  of  the  following  morning. 

The  penalty  for  hunting  unprotected  birds 
and  animals  at  night  is  not  less  than  ten  dollars, 
nor  more  than  fifty  dollars. 

Penalty  for  hunting  protected  birds  and 
animals  at  night  is  the  same  as  during  other 
closed  seasons. 

Partridge  and  woodcock :  In  Oxford,  Frank- 
lin, Somerset,  Penobscot,  Piscataquis,  Aroos- 
took,  Washington,  and  Hancock  Counties, 
open  season,  September  15  to  November  14 
inclusive;  in  Androscoggin,  Cumberland,  York, 
Kennebec,  Waldo,  Knox,  Lincoln,  and  Saga- 
dahoc  Counties,  October  I  to  November  30, 
inclusive. 

Ducks,  brant  and  geese:  September  I  to 
December  15,  inclusive. 

Black-breasted  and  golden  plover,  jacksnipe 
(or  Wilson  snipe),  and  greater  and  lesser  yel- 
lowlegs:  Open  season,  August  15  to  Novem- 
ber 30,  inclusive. 

[  i37l 


The  Latchstring 


Rails,  coots,  and  gallinules:  Open  season, 
September  I  to  November  30  inclusive. 

Perpetual  closed  season  on  Hungarian  par- 
tridge, capercailzie,  black  game,  all  species  of 
pheasant  (except  ruffed  grouse  or  partridge), 
curlew,  wood  duck,  and  all  shore  birds  (except 
black-breasted  and  golden  plover,  Wilson  or 
jacksnipe,  woodcock,  and  greater  and  lesser 
yellowlegs),  and  on  all  other  wild  birds  (ex- 
cept crows,  hawks,  owls,  English  sparrows, 
mudhens,  kingfishers,  loons,  and  blue  herons, 
which  may  be  killed  at  any  time). 

Daily  limit  on  game  birds:  No  person  can 
kill,  have  in  possession  or  transport  in  any  one 
day  more  than  five  partridges,  ten  woodcock, 
ten  ducks,  ten  snipe,  and  five  plover. 

Game  birds  cannot  be  sold  or  purchased  at 
any  time. 

Motor  boats  cannot  be  used  for  hunting  sea 
birds,  ducks,  or  waterfowl  in  any  inland  waters 
or  in  the  Kennebec  River  below  the  Gardiner 
and  Randolph  Bridge;  or  in  Eastern  River; 
or  in  Merrymeeting  Bay;  or  in  Bluehill  Bay; 
[138] 


Shotgun  and  Rifle 

or  in  Frenchman's  Bay,  or  in  Eggemoggin 
Reach,  in  Hancock  County;  or  in  Saco  Bay, 
in  Cumberland  and  York  Counties. 

Dogs  must  not  be  used  in  hunting  deer. 

Unlawful  to  use  silencers  on  firearms. 

I  have  given  this  somewhat  extended  sum- 
mary of  the  game  laws  not  only  to  render  pos- 
sible aid  to  the  sportsman,  but  to  give  non- 
residents a  more  comprehensive  idea  of  the 
care  and  thoroughness  with  which  the  State 
of  Maine  is  now  fostering  one  of  its  great  assets. 
It  seems  to  be  the  almost  unanimous  opinion 
that  these  laws  are  wise.  If  there  is  any  further 
suggestion  to  make,  it  should  be  in  the  matter 
of  politics.  The  whole  fish  and  game  depart- 
ment —  its  personnel  and  its  operation  — 
should  be  removed  from  any  kind  of  political 
consideration,  absolutely,  permanently.  In 
this  manner  only  can  the  best  results  be  ob- 
tained, best  for  the  State  itself,  and  best  for 
those  whom  we  invite  to  enjoy  its  limitless  re- 
sources. 


VII 

CAMP  AND   CANOE 

Do  you  know  the  blackened  timber  —  do  you  know  that  racing 

stream  — 

With  the  raw,  right-angled  log-jam  at  the  end; 
With  the  bar  of  sun-warmed  shingle  where  a  man  may  bask  and 

dream 
To  the  click  of  shod  canoe-poles  round  the  bend? 

It  is  there  that  we  are  going  with  our  rods  and  reels  and  traces, 

To  a  silent,  smoky  Indian  that  we  know  — 
To  a  couch  of  new-pulled  hemlock  with  the  starlight  in  our  faces, 

For  the  Red  Gods  call  us  out  and  we  must  go. 

KIPLING  knew.  And  he  seems  to  have  caught 
and  transcribed  in  these  few  lines  the  spirit 
of  the  deep  New  England  woods  far  better 
than  the  deep  New  England  sea  in  all  his 
"Captains  Courageous." 

And  my  judicial  friend  from  New  York 
knew  —  years  ago.  For  twenty-five  Septem- 
bers, without  a  break,  he  has  spent  his  four 
weeks  in  his  own  home-made  camp  on  the 
banks  of  one  of  those  racing  streams  of  the 
wilderness  that  empty  their  trout  and  salmon 
[  140  1 


Camp  and  Canoe 

into  Moosehead  Lake.  For  more  years  than 
twenty-five  has  he  listened  annually  to  the 
call  of  the  Red  Gods,  and  in  one  form  and  an- 
other of  outdoor  indulgence  got  them  out  of 
his  system. 

Who  does  not  sometime  during  the  year, 
many  times,  perhaps,  have  the  feeling  that  he 
must  kick  over  the  waste-basket,  hang  up  the 
out-of-town  sign,  take  to  the  woods,  and  enjoy 
what  Professor  Phelps  calls  the  process  of  de- 
civilization  ?  It  is  the  only  way  to  make  civili- 
zation itself  endurable. 

»'  Finally  the  judge,  after  trying  out  his  vari- 
ous inclinations  for  the  open,  settled  down  to 
an  annual  and  systematic  camping-out  vaca- 
tion in  the  Maine  woods.  If  I  remember  aright, 
the  coming  September  marks  the  quarter- 
century  anniversary.  He  lives,  moves,  and  has 
his  being  during  the  other  eleven  months  in 
an  atmosphere  of  preparation  and  reminis- 
cence. The  days  lead  up  to  and  go  from  Sep- 
tember —  glorious,  golden  September,  he  calls 
it.  There  is  a  smooth  way  of  roughing  it  in  a 


The  Latchstring 


rough  country.  The  judge  has  it.  And  I  can 
do  no  better,  perhaps,  in  trying  to  give  an  idea 
of  camp-life  in  Maine  than  to  describe  his  vaca- 
tion as  he  has  described  it  to  me  these  many 
times,  and  which  I  once  had  the  pleasure  and 
profit  of  actually  seeing  in  full  swing. 

Camping  in  the  open  has  been  the  main  ob- 
jective of  all  his  plans.  If  fish  come  to  his  net 
and  game  to  his  bag,  well  and  good.  But  fish- 
ing and  shooting  are  incidents,  so  he  says,  and 
matters  of  good  food  more  than  of  good  sport. 
But  it  so  happens,  you  will  note,  that  in  Sep- 
tember —  his  golden  month  —  he  gets  the 
last  of  the  trout  and  salmon  fishing  —  and 
with  flies  this  is  likely  to  be  as  good  as  any  in 
the  whole  season  —  and  the  first  partridge 
shooting,  and  the  first  is  by  no  means  the 
worst.  The  living  in  camp  is  therefore  good, 
and  his  selection  of  September  at  least  a  happy 
accident.  He  has  two  experienced  guides  and 
a  cook,  all  of  whom  have  been  with  him  since 
the  camp  was  established.  He  can  even  omit 
any  letter  of  notification,  for  they  all  know 
[  142  ] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

that  the  time  is  September  1st,  rain  or  shine, 
and  the  place  the  old  camp,  of  course,  close 
down  to  the  swift  river's  edge,  with  good  pools 
above,  below,  and  abreast,  a  small  pond  not 
far  away,  and  in  among  big  trees  whose  over- 
hanging branches  give  both  protection  and 
charm.  The  camper's  veritable  fairyland! 
He  always  comes  in  with  the  family,  his  wife 
who  knows  and  enjoys  the  best  of  outdoors, 
and  three  husky  boys,  made  so  by  this  life  in 
the  woods,  who  have  as  much  zest  for  it  and 
get  as  much  keen  enjoyment  and  new  strength 
out  of  it  as  the  father  and  mother. 

And  what  is  camp  without  a  boy  ?  He 's  the 
life  of  it,  this  roving  interrogation  point  of  the 
woods.  It  is  here  of  all  places  in  the  world  that 
the  boy  justifies  himself  and  becomes  a  thing 
of  beauty  and  joy  forever  to  the  guides  —  even 
to  his  parents.  He  asks  questions  from  sun-up 
to  evening,  and  if  there  is  anything  that  gets 
by,  from  boiling  water  in  a  birch  bark  basin 
to  trapping  a  mink,  it  is  his  misfortune  and 
not  his  neglect.  His  unconscious  enthusiasm 
[  i43  1 


The  Latchstring 


for  everything  he  sees  and  hears  and  does,  his 
constant,  always-boiling  joy  at  the  big  and 
broad  life  about  him,  is  educational,  decidedly 
and  quickly  contagious,  and  brings  back  youth 
and  activity  to  his  elders.  A  boy  who  has  not 
known  existence  in  a  camp  like  this,  or  in  one 
rougher  and  less  modern  in  its  comforts,  who 
has  not  experienced  and  enjoyed  all  the  seasons 
in  a  country  village  or  on  a  farm,  starts  with  a 
serious  handicap  in  the  great  Marathon  of  life. 
Always  take  a  boy  along  when  you  can,  for  his 
own  sake  and  for  yours. 

When  the  judge  and  his  wife  and  busy  boys 
arrive  promptly  on  the  eve  of  September  I, 
they  find  the  little  village  of  tents  set  up,  a 
good  fire  in  the  center  of  the  hollow  square, 
which,  by  the  way,  is  never  allowed  completely 
to  die  out  during  the  month,  and  a  big  supper 
in  the  making.  They  have  come  in  by  train, 
lake  steamboat,  and  canoe,  the  last  poled  or 
paddled  up  the  river,  or  both,  according  to  the 
height  of  water.  There  are  three  sleeping- 
tents,  a  kitchen  tent,  a  dining-tent,  and  one 
[  H4  1 


Camp  and  Canoe 

used  as  a  living-room  and  library  stocked  with 
nature  books  of  all  kinds,  the  September  maga- 
zines, and  a  few  of  the  late  novels.  Legal  tomes, 
briefs,  books  about  war,  and  newspapers  have 
failed  to  pass  the  library  committee.  At  one 
end  of  this  canvas  living-room,  which  madame 
always  manages  to  keep  homelike  and  attract- 
ive with  wild  flowers  and  other  native  decora- 
tions, is  a  stone  fireplace,  where  burn  almost 
every  evening  yellow  birch  logs,  the  delight 
and  ambition  of  every  man  who  knows  just 
what  an  open  fire  should  be.  The  beds  and 
pillows  are  of  fresh,  gently  yielding,  sweet- 
smelling  fir  boughs,  on  which  the  wildest- 
turning  neurasthenic  can  be  induced  to  sleep 
in  five  minutes.  The  dining-table  is  so  ar- 
ranged that  it  can  be  moved  into  the  open  for 
al-fresco  effect,  or  kept  under  cover  if  weather 
requires.  The  kitchen  is  the  model  of  the  es- 
tablishment, the  creature  of  the  judge's  brain 
and  the  apple  of  his  eye.  It  is  convenient  to 
the  outdoor  fire,  where  all  the  cooking  is  done, 
and  is  so  arranged  in  its  relation  to  the  trees 
[  US  1 


The  Latch  string 

and  their  limbs  that  nature  and  man  seem  to 
have  combined  to  make  cooking  an  art  and 
dishwashing  a  pleasure.  The  tents  stand  on 
three  sides  of  the  square,  and  by  the  open  side 
runs  the  little  river,  playing  no  unimportant 
part  in  the  picture.  A  month  in  a  place  like 
that  and  life  has  its  compensations!  There  is 
never  a  dull  moment,  but  ever  something  new 
and  unusual  to  see  and  do.  And  if  I  might  once 
more  touch  on  gastronomies,  something  new 
to  eat,  for  once  we  had  partridges  cooked  in 
deep  fat,  and  the  tenderest  meat  of  any  kind 
I  ever  tasted. 

The  judge's  camp  is  far  from  any  settle- 
ment and  miles  from  any  farm  or  clearing. 
The  change  from  his  office  in  Nassau  Street 
and  his  home  on  Riverside  is  complete  and 
satisfying.  Quite  sufficient  to  please  a  Tolstoy 
who  "dwells  with  especial  fondness  on  the 
sharp  contrast  between  the  frivolity,  the  tinsel 
brightness,  the  tumult  and  vanity  of  the 
worldly  life  and  the  sweet,  holy  calm  enjoyed 
by  those  who,  possessing  the  soil,  live  amid  the 
[  146] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

beauties  of  nature  and  the  pleasures  of  the 
family." 

Each  year  the  whole  camp,  including  the 
guides  and  cook,  takes  up  a  new  nature  study. 
They  began  several  years  ago  with  birds,  and 
followed  with  wild  flowers,  ferns,  and  animals. 
The  native  guides  contribute  the  results  of 
long  observation  of  wild  life,  the  family  make 
the  textbook  applications,  and  both  get  the 
advantage  of  mutual  assistance  not  often 
found  in  outdoor  education.  When  I  was  in 
last  fall  they  were  all  studying  trees. 

"What  next?"  I  asked  Mrs.  Judge. 

"Bugs." 

The  possibilities  of  places  just  like  this  in 
Maine  cannot  be  counted.  They  exist  by  the 
sea,  by  the  lakes,  on  the  hills,  and  almost  any- 
where along  the  rivers  and  streams.  The  State 
is  known  far  and  near  as  a  paradise  for  those 
who  especially  enjoy  this  kind  of  outdoor  life. 
And  this  kind  of  life  can  be  enjoyed  in  every 
season,  only  in  midwinter  the  abandoned  log- 
ging-camp takes  the  place  of  canvas  tents. 
[  i47l 


The  Latchstring 

Summer  and  fall,  of  course,  find  more  camp- 
ers in  Maine  than  the  other  seasons,  but 
spring  and  winter  are  becoming  more  and 
more  popular  each  year.  Right  at  my  elbow 
now  stands  a  man  who  went  into  Parlin  Pond 
last  March  to  pitch  his  camp,  and  he  waxes 
eloquent  and  pleasing  on  the  beauties  of  the 
young  year  in  the  Maine  wilderness. 

"There  are  four  excursions,"  says  Professor 
Sharp,  one  of  my  New  England  nature  instruc- 
tors, "that  you  should  make  this  spring:  one 
to  a  small  pond  in  the  woods;  one  to  a  deep 
wild  swamp;  one  to  a  wide  salt  marsh,  or  fresh- 
water meadow;  and  one  to  the  seashore  —  to 
a  wild,  rocky,  sandy  shore  uninhabited  by 
man.  There  are  particular  birds  and  animals, 
as  well  as  flowers,  that  dwell  only  in  these 
haunts ;  besides,  you  can  get  a  sight  of  four  dis- 
tinct kinds  of  landscapes,  four  deep  impres- 
sions of  the  face  of  nature  that  are  altogether 
as  good  to  have  as  the  sight  of  four  flowers  or 
birds." 

As  I  read  this  in  the  morning  lesson  out 
I  148] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

under  the  silver  leaves  of  the  tree  of  the  genus 
popple  (much-approved  spelling),  it  occurred 
to  me  at  once  that  there  are  no  States  that  can 
afford  this  combination  in  such  small  areas  as 
can  Maine  in  almost  all  of  her  coast  towns. 
And  if  one  must  live  in  one  place  during  every 
month  of  the  year  there  is  no  more  healthful 
climate  for  the  normal  man,  no  greater  variety 
in  natural  life,  and  no  keener  interest  in  all 
kinds  of  life.  Even  if  you  have  no  other  inclina- 
tion, the  mere  observation  of  the  change  of 
seasons,  here  produced  in  strong  contrast,  in 
all  its  wonder  and  glory,  will  give  you  reason 
for  living  and  zest  in  existence. 

Sitting  one  day  before  the  open  fire  in  the 
comfortable  old  Bangor  House,  kept  at  the 
time  by  Captain  Chapman,  as  fine  an  old-school 
old  gentleman  as  ever  entertained  a  President, 
I  looked  up  in  great  astonishment  to  greet  an 
old  friend  who  had  slapped  me  on  the  shoulder 
in  brotherly  but  vigorous  affection.  It  was  like 
shaking  hands  with  a  man  who  had  come  back 
from  the  Great  Beyond,  for  knowing  that  he 
I  i49  1 


The  Latchstring 


was  ten  years  an  invalid,  and  at  the  end  of 
that  time  desperately  ill,  we  of  his  college  class 
had  lost  track  of  him  and  given  him  up.  He 
served  as  chaplain  —  so  runs  the  story  of  his 
return  to  life  —  in  the  Cuban  campaign  during 
the  Spanish  War  and  came  out  a  physical 
wreck.  After  a  series  of  years  and  many  experi- 
ences with  all  the  great  doctors  from  Boston 
to  Chicago,  he  went  mentally  on  the  rocks. 

All  kinds  of  operations  were  performed  on 
nearly  all  parts  of  his  body,  and  finally  one 
of  the  famous  Philadelphia  physicians  frankly 
told  him  that  science  had  done  its  best  and 
been  exhausted. 

"There  is  just  one  more  hope  for  you,"  said 
he  to  his  patient.  "Where  were  you  born,  and 
where  did  you  spend  your  early  life?" 

"Patten,  Maine." 

"Go  back  there  at  once,  and  live  absolutely 
and  completely  in  the  open  for  two  years.  Not 
parts  of  two  years,  but  twenty-four  months  of 
two  years.  Sleep  out  of  doors  every  night,  eat  out 
of  doors  every  meal.  It  is  your  last  chance." 
[  150] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

"And  I  followed  this  to  the  letter,"  said 
the  former  invalid.  "At  the  end  of  eighteen 
months,  after  taking  in  this  Maine  air,  and 
never  once  sleeping  indoors,  I  remember  now 
that  the  whole  thing  came  to  me  as  a  revelation 
while  sitting  on  a  log  up  in  the  woods.  All  of 
a  sudden  it  came  to  me  that  I  was  alive,  and 
going  to  live.  I  jumped  with  joy.  A  new  man, 
and  here  I  am!" 

There  is  every  kind  of  inducement  for  every 
kind  of  camp-life  in  the  State,  including  the 
old-fashioned  camp-meeting,  an  institution  still 
extant  in  several  counties.  The  spruce-bor- 
dered salt-water  shores,  with  all  the  natural 
and  some  of  the  manufactured  advantages  of  the 
wealthier  resorts,  offer  their  special  attractions. 
In  the  early  development  of  the  vacation  idea, 
camping  out  on  the  coast  was  a  common  and 
inexpensive  method  and  the  white  tents  which 
dotted  the  shores  in  summer,  each  with  its 
tame  crow  for  a  mascot  and  pet,  added  pictur- 
esqueness  to  the  scenery.  But  now  spruce  and 
pine  boards  have  largely  supplanted  canvas, 
[  151  1 


The  Latchstring 


and  the  summer  cottage  of  varying  degrees  of 
expense  is  the  prevailing  vacation  home  at  the 
seaside.  In  the  early  days  it  could  be  produced 
for  a  song.  Now  it  takes  a  whole  lot  of  songs, 
and  before  the  final  bills  are  finally  paid  father 
usually  breaks  out  in  an  anvil  chorus.  But  the 
increased  expense  of  construction  has  brought 
with  it  more  convenience  and  comfort,  and 
with  these  have  come  a  much  longer  season. 
The  camping-out  period  of  two  weeks  of  years 
ago  has  grown  into  three  or  four  months,  and 
many  families  now  come  to  the  coast  for  five 
and  six  months.  In  the  interior,  however,  the 
camper  is  still  holding  his  own,  and  his  location 
is  usually  convenient  to  fishing  and  shooting 
according  to  the  season.  Then  there  are  the 
mountain-climbers  who  pitch  their  tents  here, 
there,  and  everywhere  in  the  hills,  and  pursue 
their  arduous  recreation. 

Camping  in  Maine  can  be  made  rough  and  sim- 
ple, or  luxurious  and  complicated,  as  you  like, 
or  according  to  your  bank  account.   You  will 
have  a  good  time,  anyway.   The  prime  essen- 
[  152  1 


Camp  and  Canoe 

tials  of  all  equipment  are  an  open  mind,  a  dis- 
position to  put  up  with  anything  and  every- 
thing, and  a  determination  to  take  all  you  can 
from  Nature's  storehouse  of  health  and  knowl- 
edge. And  in  the  Maine  woods,  as  everywhere 
else,  Nature  is  generous,  exhaustless.  Her 
candle  lights  a  million  other  candles  and  burns 
on  brightly  and  invitingly  just  the  same. 

As  to  physical  outfit,  it  is  interesting  here 
to  noteThoreau's  recommendations,  made  after 
his  three  camping-out  visits  to  Maine  from 
1846  to  1857.  I  quote  from  the  appendix  of  his 
volume,  "The  Maine  Woods":  — 

"The  following  will  be  a  good  outfit  for  one 
who  wishes  to  make  an  excursion  of  twelve 
days  into  the  Maine  woods  in  July,  with  a 
companion,  and  one  Indian  for  the  same  pur- 
poses that  I  did. 

"  Wear,  —  a  check  shirt,  stout  old  shoes,  thick 
socks,  a  neck  ribbon,  thick  waistcoat,  thick 
pants,  old  Kossuth  hat,  a  linen  sack. 

"  Carry,  —  in  an  India-rubber  knapsack,  with 
a  large  flap,  two  shirts  (check),  one  pair  thick 
[  i53  1 


The  Latchstring 


socks,  one  pair  drawers,  one  flannel  shirt,  two 
pocket-handkerchiefs,  a  light  India-rubber  coat 
or  a  thick  woolen  one,  two  bosoms  and  collars 
to  go  and  come  with,  one  napkin,  pins,  needles, 
thread,  one  blanket,  best  gray,  seven  feet  long. 

"  Tent,  —  six  by  seven  feet,  and  four  feet 
high  in  middle,  will  do;  veil  and  gloves  and 
insect-wash,  or,  better,  mosquito-bars  to  cover 
all  at  night;  best  pocket-map,  and  perhaps  de- 
scription of  the  route;  compass;  plant-book  and 
red  blotting-paper;  paper  and  stamps,  botany, 
small  pocket  spy-glass  for  birds,  pocket  micro- 
scope, tape-measure,  insect-boxes. 

"Axe,  full  size  if  possible,  jackknife,  fish- 
lines,  two  only  apiece,  with  a  few  hooks  and 
corks  ready,  and  with  pork  for  bait  in  a  packet, 
rigged;  matches  (some  also  in  a  small  vial  in 
the  waistcoat  pocket);  soap,  two  pieces;  large 
knife  and  iron  spoon  (for  all) ;  three  or  four  old 
neswpapers,  much  twine,  and  several  rags  for 
dishcloths;  twenty  feet  of  strong  cord,  four- 
quart  tin  pail  for  kettle,  two  tin  dippers,  three 
tin  plates,  a  fry-pan. 

I  iS4l 


Camp  and  Canoe 

"Provisions, —  Soft  hardbread,  twenty-eight 
pounds;  pork,  sixteen  pounds;  sugar,  twelve 
pounds;  one  pound  black  tea  or  three  pounds 
coffee,  one  box  or  a  pint  of  salt,  one  quart 
Indian  meal,  to  fry  fish  in ;  six  lemons,  good  to 
correct  the  pork  and  warm  water;  perhaps  two 
or  three  pounds  of  rice,  for  variety.  You  will 
probably  get  some  berries,  fish,  etc.,  beside. 

"A  gun  is  not  worth  the  carriage,  unless  you 
go  as  hunters." 

This  was  many  years  ago  and  there  have 
been  many  improvements  since,  but  the  camper 
of  to-day  who  has  the  genuine  back-to-nature 
feeling,  and  a  desire  really  to  rough  it,  can  follow 
much  of  this  advice  with  profit.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  Thoreau  insisted  on  a  "check" 
shirt,  but  he  probably  had  his  reasons.  A  book 
with  this  descriptive  adjective  is  sure  to  be 
found  convenient.  Tents  have  naturally  been 
greatly  improved,  and  a  grade  of  sea-island 
cotton,  sometimes  known  as  "balloon  silk," 
light  and  compact,  is  now  the  common  material. 
Other  modern  improvements  which  Thoreau 


The  Latchstring 


would  advise,  if  he  were  camping  in]  Maine  in 
these  days,  are:  First  of  all,  a  decent  respect 
for  the  game  laws,  and  next,  a  camera;  then 
paper  blankets,  light  and  warm;  panchos  for 
wet  weather,  light  duck  duffel  bags  for  cloth- 
ing, and  some  of  the  new  foods  prepared  with 
reference  to  compactness  and  nutrition.  These 
last,  however,  only  for  emergency  rations.  Live 
as  much  as  possible  off  the  country  of  your  in- 
vasion —  and  very  much  is  possible  you  will 
find.  Keep  your  own  ingenuity  and  that  of  the 
boys  always  at  work.  What  you  cannot  learn 
from  the  guides,  invent.  You  can  always  teach 
them  something,  not  the  least  of  the  satisfac- 
tions of  the  wilderness. 

There  are  more  than  a  hundred  boys'  and 
girls'  camps  in  Maine,  and  nowhere  in  the  coun- 
try has  this  comparatively  new  development 
of  summer  life  reached  such  a  high  standard. 
Nowhere  is  there  such  a  variety  of  conditions 
adapted  to  this  kind  of  outdoor  education 
and  training.  These  camps  are  to  be  found 
in  every  county,  on  the  shores  of  all  the  larger 
[  156] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

lakes  and  ponds,  and,  in  smaller  numbers,  on 
the  seacoast.  This  form  of  outing  for  the  youth 
of  the  family,  which  combines  the  vigor  of  the 
open  air  with  light  study,  is  becoming  more  and 
more  a  feature  of  the  annual  vacation  plan, 
and  the  camps  in  Maine  are  fast  increasing  to 
meet  new  demands.  Many  of  these  include  in 
the  generous  outdoor  curriculum  some  sort  of 
observation  or  actual  experience  in  farm  life, 
and  there  are  few  things  in  temperate  climate 
nature  that  cannot  be  studied  at  first  hand. 
The  most  common  camp  village  has  for  its  cen- 
ter a  general  dining-room  and  meeting-place, 
which  is  either  a  large  tent  or  of  log-cabin  con- 
struction, surrounded  by  smaller  tents  which 
the  boys  or  girls  make  their  summer  homes, 
each  containing  from  two  to  four  cots.  The 
young  students  roam  the  fields  and  woods  al- 
most at  will.  There  are  all  kinds  of  sports,  and 
the  larger  camps  have  the  all-important  ath- 
letic instructor  on  the  board,  usually  with  swim- 
ming as  his  specialty.  At  one  of  the  boys' 
camps  on  the  shores  of  Sebago  last  summer  I 


The  Latchstring 


found  the  most  famous  football  player  of  his 
year  installed  as  one  of  the  councilors. 

This  is  probably  an  advertisement,  but  it 
expresses  so  well  the  aims  and  actual  accom- 
plishments of  these  highly  beneficial  institutions, 
that  I  am  glad  to  copy  and  give  it  the  circula- 
tion of  this  volume,  if  it  has  any :  — 
•:  "Give  me  your  boy  or  your  girl  for  a  sum- 
mer," says  the  manager  of  this  new  sort  of 
summer  rendezvous.  "Let  me  have  them  in 
the  care  of  myself  and  my  trained  assistants. 
They  shall  have  all  the  reasonable  freedom  they 
could  ask;  be  under  watchful  care  every  minute 
of  the  day;  study  nature  under  specialists  who 
know  its  every  secret;  meet  their  comrades 
from  other  cities,  other  States,  other  environ- 
ments; share  the  friendship  of  cultured,  college- 
bred  camp  directors;  be  instructed,  if  you  wish, 
in  some  of  the  special  studies  which  they  have 
not  entirely  mastered  during  winter  schooling. 
In  the  fall,  they  shall  be  returned  to  you,  strong, 
healthy,  with  that  resourcefulness  which  only 
life  in  the  woods  teaches." 
[  158] 


Some  one  who  keeps  the  count  reports  that 
five  thousand  canoes  passed  over  the  Northeast 
Carry  of  Moosehead  Lake  last  season.  And 
this  is  only  one  converging  point  of  the  great 
canoe  cruises  of  the  State.  They  vary  in  length 
from  twenty  to  three  hundred  miles;  in  south 
and  north  geography,  from  Kennebunkport  to 
St.  Francis,  and,  west  and  east,  Umbagog  to 
Lambert  Lake;  in  topography,  from  a  small  and 
harmless  pond  surrounded  by  gently  sloping 
fields  to  the  far-famed  but  unfrequented  Ripo- 
genus  Gorge;  in  character  from  a  mild  paddle 
down  a  placid  stream  to  an  inland  wind-swept 
sea  voyage  of  sufficient  roughness  to  test  all 
the  resources  of  an  expert. 

You  can  start  right  in  at  Camp  Ellis  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Saco,  and  with  few  carries,  none 
of  which  is  hard  or  long,  make  Upper  Kezar 
Pond  through  one  of  the  most  charming  valleys 
in  New  England,  from  tidewater  almost  to  the 
center  of  the  White  Mountain  Range.  Mean- 
while you  have  had  all  the  exercise  that  one 
trip  requires,  for  you  have  paddled  up  a  rise  of 
[  159] 


The  Latchstring 

fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
river's  mouth.  The  general  elevation  of  the 
Saco's  basin  is  greater  than  that  of  any  other 
of  the  great  water-power  rivers  of  Maine,  ex- 
cept the  Androscoggin.  You  have  also  passed 
through  scenery  of  great  variety  and  a  wonder- 
ful beauty  which  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  — 
power  to  her  eloquent  tongue  and  pen  —  is  try- 
ing her  best  to  preserve.  She  appeared  before 
a  "committee  of  the  legislature  last  winter  in 
opposition  to  a  bill  giving  rights  to  dam  the 
Saco  at  Hiram,  near  her  home. 

"I  know  I  am  not  saying  a  single  logical 
thing,"  said  she  in  a  charming,  illogical,  wom- 
anly way,  "  and  I  know  I  am  talking  from 
sentimental  reasons.  I  care  nothing  about  the 
loss  in  a  financial  way.  But  for  twenty  years 
the  women  of  that  section  have  been  trying  to 
make  a  better  community  of  it.  At  one  blow 
the  beauty  of  everything  we  have  tried  to  do 
will  be  destroyed  if  this  bill  passes.  I  can't 
conceive  of  anything  that  would  reconcile  me 
to  life  without  the  beauty  of  that  river." 
t  160] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

But  in  spite  of  this  argument,  whose  strength 
lay  in  its  feminine  weakness,  the  bill  passed. 

You  have  also  enjoyed  the  Fryeburg  Bend, 
where,  starting  near  the  village,  you  can  canoe 
twenty  miles  of  the  river  and  arrive  —  at  the 
village  again,  not  far  from  Dr.  Gordon's  fine 
old  colonial  home.  The  Saco  Valley  seems  to 
possess  great  fascination  for  the  New  England 
novelist.  Thus  does  Howells  open  "A  Modern 
Instance,"  in  his  intimate,  homely  way,  de- 
scribing Fryeburg  and  its  river  as  it  twice 
sweeps  in  and  out  of  town,  a  mirror  and  classic 
of  a  typical  Maine  village :  — 

"The  village  stood  on  a  wide  plain,  and 
around  it  rose  the  mountains.  They  were  green 
to  their  tops  in  summer,  and  in  winter  white 
through  their  serried  pines  and  drifting  mists; 
but  at  every  season  serious  and  beautiful,  fur- 
rowed with  hollow  shadows,  and  taking  the 
light  on  masses  and  stretches  of  iron-gray  crag. 
The  river  swam  through  the  plain  in  long 
curves,  and  slipped  away  at  last  through  an 
unseen  pass  to  the  southward,  tracing  a  score 
[  161  1 


Latchstring 

of  miles  in  its  course  over  a  space  that  measured 
but  three  or  four.  The  plain  was  very  fertile, 
and  its  features,  if  few  and  of  purely  utilitarian 
beauty,  had  a  rich  luxuriance,  and  there  was  a 
tropical  riot  of  vegetation  when  the  sun  of  July 
beat  on  those  northern  fields.  They  waved  with 
corn  and  oats  to  the  feet  of  the  mountains,  and 
the  potatoes  covered  a  vast  acreage  with  the 
lines  of  their  intense,  coarse  green.  The  meadows 
were  deep  with  English  grass  to  the  banks  of 
the  river,  that,  doubling  and  returning  upon 
itself,  still  marked  its  way  with  a  dense  fringe 
of  alders  and  white  birches.  .  .  . 
.-  "Behind  the  black  boles  of  the  elms  that 
swept  the  vista  of  the  street  with  the  fine  gray 
tracery  of  their  boughs,  stood  the  houses,  deep- 
sunken  in  the  accumulating  drifts,  through 
which  each  householder  kept  a  path  cut  from 
his  doorway  to  the  road,  white  and  clean  as  if 
hewn  out  of  marble.  Some  cross-streets  strag- 
gled away  east  and  west  with  the  poorer  dwel- 
lings; but  this,  that  followed  the  northward 
and  southward  reach  of  the  plain,  was  the  main 
[  162  1 


Camp  and  Canoe 

thoroughfare,  and  had  its  own  impressiveness, 
with  those  square  white  houses  which  they 
build  so  large  in  northern  New  England.  They 
were  all  kept  in  scrupulous  repair,  though 
here  and  there  the  frost  and  thaw  of  many 
winters  had  heaved  a  fence  out  of  plumb,  and 
threatened  the  poise  of  the  monumental  urns 
of  painted  pine  on  gatepost.  They  had  dark- 
green  blinds,  of  a  color  harmonious  with  that 
of  the  funereal  evergreens  in  their  dooryards; 
and  they  themselves  had  taken  the  tone  of  the 
snowy  landscape,  as  if  by  the  operation  of  some 
such  law  as  blanches  the  fur-bearing  animals 
of  the  North.  They  seemed  proper  to  its  deso- 
lation, while  some  houses  of  more  modern  taste, 
painted  to  a  warmer  tone,  looked,  with  their 
mansard  roofs  and  jig-sawed  piazzas  and  bal- 
conies, intrusive  and  alien. 

"At  one  end  of  the  street  stood  the  Academy, 
with  its  classic  facade  and  its  belfry;  midway 
was  the  hotel,  with  the  stores,  the  printing- 
office  and  the  churches;  and,  at  the  other  ex- 
treme, one  of  the  square  white  mansions  stood 
[  163  1 


The  Latchstring 

advanced  from  the  rank  of  the  rest,  at  the  top 
of  a  deep-plunging  valley,  defining  itself  against 
the  mountain  beyond  so  sharply  that  it  seemed 
as  if  cut  out  of  its  dark-wooded  side.  It  was 
from  the  gate  before  this  house,  distinct  in  the 
pink  light  which  the  sunset  had  left,  that,  on 
a  Saturday  evening  in  February,  a  cutter,  gay 
with  red-lined  robes,  dashed  away,  and  came 
musically  dashing  down  the  street  under  the 
naked  elms." 

Another  western  Maine  canoe  cruise,  which 
combines  rivers  and  small  streams  with  large 
and  small  lakes,  can  be  started  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Presumpscot  River  just  north  of  Portland, 
and  finished  at  the  head  of  Long  Pond  in  the 
delightful  old  town  of  Harrison.  It  has  all  the 
Maine  varieties  of  scenery,  takes  you  over  the 
length  of  Sebago  Lake,  and  through  the  Songo, 
a  strange  little  river,  always  turning  on  itself, 
and  altogether  the  crookedest  stream  in  the 
United  States,  called  "sinuous"  for  the  twofold 
purpose  of  accurate  description  and  allitera- 
[  164! 


Camp  and  Canoe 

tion.  Then  up  through  the  American  Bay  of 
Naples,  in  between  the  beautiful  highlands  of 
Bridgton,  to  the  foothills^  of  the  mountains. 
You  have  carried  around  at  Westbrook  some  of 
the  finest  paper  mills  in  the  world,  and,  farther 
down  the  Presumpscot,  have  passed  one  of  the 
most  unique  and  beautiful  summer  and  winter 
outing-places  for  public  entertainment  that  can 
be  imagined.  The  picturesque  open-air  theater, 
where  nothing  but  entertainments  of  the  first 
class  are  given,  is  worth  paddling  many  miles 
to  see.  There  is  an  air  of  quietness  and  pleasant 
refinement  seldom  if  ever  found  in  popular 
resorts  of  this  kind.  And  when  any  one  tells 
you  that  places  like  this  cannot  be  made  finan- 
cially successful  unless  they  have  at  least  some 
of  the  cheap,  noisy,  and  gaudy  attractions  of 
the  big  city  resorts,  take  him  to  Riverton,  just 
out  of  Portland,  on  the  banks  of  the  little  river 
where  the  canoes  are;  morning,  afternoon,  and 
evening;  popular  prices;  bring  the  children. 
It's  a  charming  place.  I  wish^  Mr.  Howells 
could  see  it. 

[  165  1 


The  Latchstring 


For  your  trip  through  the  Rangeleys,  already 
described,  plan  to  take  lots  of  time.  The  fishing 
is  so  good. 

And  some  year  take  your  canoeing  outfit 
down  into  the  Belgrade  Lake  chain,  cruise  all 
the  ponds,  Messalonskee  Stream  to  Waterville, 
out  into  the  Kennebec,  and  down  to  Augusta, 
or  even  to  Bath  and  Fort  Popham,  a  hundred 
miles  or  more  of  interesting  territory.  Going 
up  the  Kennebec  to  Gardiner  on  the  Boston 
boat  the  other  morning,  I  overheard  this  from 
a  man  who  looked  a  gentleman,  a  traveler,  and 
a  good  judge  of  landscape :  — 

"Why,  this  beats  the  Hudson!" 

There  are  the  Washington  County  lakes  and 
streams  which  can  be  entered  from  the  railroad 
at  East  Machias  and  left  at  Princeton,  or  en- 
tered at  Princeton  and  left  anywhere  you  like; 
with  all  kinds  of  scenery,  and  especially  land- 
locked salmon  scenery.  Be  sure  not  to  omit 
Wittequergaugum  from  the  itinerary.  This  re- 
gion is  known  more  for  its  great  fishing  than 
for  camping  and  canoeing,  but  of  late  years  it 
[  166] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

has  become  very  popular  for  all  kinds  of  out- 
door life. 

There  are  no  more  famous  canoe  trips  in  the 
world  than  those  of  the  West  Branch  and  the 
East  Branch  of  the  Penobscot.  Both  begin  at 
the  Northeast  Carry  of  Moosehead  and  run  on 
together  to  Chesuncook  Lake.  Then  if  the  West 
Branch  is  your  choice,  turn  southeast  down  the 
lake  and  at  its  foot  you  run  into  the  Penobscot, 
over  and  around  falls,  rapids,  and  great  gorges, 
on  to  the  Twin  Lakes,  where  the  cruise  ends  at 
Norcross,  a  distance  of  about  eighty  miles  by 
water.  This  can  be  done  in  a  week's  time,  but 
two  weeks  are  better,  and  if  you  wish  to  make 
detours  and  enjoy  Lobster  Lake,  the  wonderful 
trout  fishing  at  Sourdnahunk,  and  a  side  trip  up 
Katahdin,  you  can  easily  use  up  a  month.  It 
is  said  by  the  guides  that  more  canoeists  make 
this  trip  than  any  other  in  the  State.  It  is 
particularly  popular  with  novices. 

The  East  Branch  trip,  also  starting  at  North- 
east Carry,  but  ending  at  Grindstone,  has  un- 
usual attractions  both  for  the  novice  and  the 
[  167  1 


The  Latchstring 

veteran,  and  if  the  side  line  is  a  fishing  line  it 
has  more  interesting  and  productive  possibili- 
ties than  any  of  the  others.  It  covers  a  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  of  forest  waterways  whose 
equal  in  variety  and  wild  beauty  is  hard  to 
find  in  any  country.  Turn  northeast  at  the 
head  of  Chesuncook  and  paddle  nine  miles 
through  Umbazooksus  stream  to  the  lake  which 
struggles  along  with  the  same  name.  Then 
back  to  the  English  language  again  at  Mud 
Pond,  only  a  few  miles  away,  where  you  fairly 
enter  East  Branch  waters.  This  cruise  includes 
Chamberlain,  one  of  the  larger  and  more  pic- 
turesque of  the  northern  Maine  lakes,  and, 
after  leaving  Webster,  some  pretty  swift  water, 
especially  at  Grand  Falls.  If  the  river  is  high, 
if  you  are  inexperienced  yourself,  and  not  sure 
of  the  guides,  and  if  you  are  thinking  of  safety 
first  and  dry  clothes  next,  take  out  here  and 
tote  to  less  turbulent  waters.  There  are  other 
rapids  below  which  you  will  do  well  to  consider, 
one  in  particular,  known  on  the  maps  as  the 
"Hulling  Machine"  -probably  intended  for 
[  168] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

"Hurling  Machine."  For  its  rapid  succession 
of  rough  and  smooth  water  and  many  good 
camping-places  the  canoeist  will  find  no  more 
exciting  and  interesting  trip  than  this. 

A  real  man's  size  voyage  is  that  farther  up 
north  and  down  the  St.  John  River.  Its  length 
as  usually  taken  is  two  hundred  and  thirty 
miles,  and  it  comes  to  an  end  way  up  on  the 
border  at  St.  Francis.  It  can  be  extended  down 
the  river  to  a  total  distance  of  three  hundred 
miles  or  more,  if  desired  —  part  of  this  exten- 
sion in  Canadian  territory.  This  is  the  only  one 
of  the  big  canoe  trips  of  the  northern  country 
that  starts  at  the  Northwest  Carry,  so  known 
in  the  old  days,  but  in  the  modern  called  "See- 
boomook,"  but  whether  for  convenience  or 
euphony  the  geographers  fail  to  relate.  You 
pass  up  the  West  Branch  through  lake  and 
river  regions  not  unlike  those  of  the  other 
northern  trips.  But  once  over  into  the  St. 
John,  there  is  a  clean  water  run  with  the  cur- 
rent of  nearly  ninety  miles  into  Acadian  St. 
Francis. 

[  169! 


The  Latchstring 

Last  to  be  mentioned  of  these  wonderful 
waterway  outings,  but  not  least  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  just  now  the  most  famous  and 
popular  of  all,  is  that  from  the  Northeast  Carry 
to  St.  Francis  and  Fort  Kent,  two  hundred 
miles,  known  to  all  canoeists  as  the  Allegash 
route.  It  follows  up  through  Chamberlain, 
Churchill,  and  smaller  lakes  to  the  north,  into 
the  Allegash  River,  down  to  its  junction  with 
the  St.  John  and  St.  Francis,  and  ends  in  a 
fifteen-mile  run  to  Fort  Kent,  the  usual  termi- 
nus of  this  grand  excursion.  It  has  many  inter- 
esting detours,  and  you  can  use  up  a  month 
or  six  weeks  of  time  without  any  feeling  of 
monotony.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been 
done  in  ten  days  with  none  of  its  beauty  over- 
looked. 

Speaking  of  speed  and  endurance  in  a  canoe, 
I  am  just  now  reminded  of  the  great  astonish- 
ment with  which  we  regarded  a  very  handsome, 
agile,  six-foot-six  Indian  one  night  at  the  West 
Outlet  camps.  We  had  been  fly  fishing  in  the 
morning  about  a  mile  below  the  dam  when  he 


Camp  and  Canoe 

passed  us  in  his  light,  Oldtown  canoe,  with  a 
rather  stout  lady,  apparently  past  middle  age, 
as  a  passenger.  When  we  returned  to  camp 
about  five  o'clock  that  evening  for  supper 
there  he  was  at  the  landing  patching  his  fragile 
craft.  In  his  day's  trip  he  had  paddled  down 
the  length  of  the  West  Outlet  and  across  the 
head  of  Indian  Pond,  poled  up  against  the 
current  of  the  East  Outlet,  and  then,  with 
paddle  again,  worked  seven  miles  up  Moose- 
head  Lake  against  a  fairly  stiff  northwester, 
more  than  twenty  miles  in  all.  Without  the 
smallest  sign  of  boasting  he  told  us  he  had 
made  this  same  trip  every  day  for  a  week. 

He  had  no  engagement,  and  would  we  like 
to  go  to-morrow? 

Of  course,  this  was  no  record  in  actual  dis- 
tance covered,  for  they  tell  great  stories  up  in 
those  regions,  and  most  of  them  are  true.  But 
when  you  take  into  consideration  the  condi- 
tions of  current  and  wind  of  that  particular 
day,  gallantly  saying  nothing  of  the  stoutness 
of  that  particular  lady,  you  will  appreciate  that 
[  171  1 


The  Latckstring 


that  particular  feat  was  something  to  cause 
astonishment.  I  have  ever  since  had  great  pride 
in  knowing  that  particular,  silent,  smoky 
Indian.  Muscular,  wiry,  powerful,  resourceful, 
keen  of  eye,  quick  of  limb,  —  you  would  travel 
far  in  many  countries  before  discovering  a  finer 
physical  specimen  of  any  race,  or  a  product  of 
the  forest  so  nearly  perfect:  one  of  those  rare 
men  who  always  and  at  once  command  com- 
plete confidence.  You  have  an  instinct  that  he 
will  do  exactly  what  he  ought  to  do  at  exactly 
the  right  time.  His  mental  alertness  and  physi- 
cal speed  are  especially  impressive,  and  alto- 
gether he  fits  to  perfection  Lardner's  descrip- 
tion of  the  Honorable  Tyrus  Raymond  Cobb, 
of  Georgia  and  Michigan:  "When  the  other 
fast  guys  is  thinkin'  what  they're  goin'  to  do, 
he's  did  it." 

Northeast  Carry  is  an  interesting  place.  It  is 
what  Edna  Ferber  calls  Emma  McChesney's 
office  —  a  clearing-house  for  trouble.  You 
arrive  by  steamer  and  leave  by  canoe.  In  be- 
tween the  two  you  have  forgotten  the  crossing 
[  172! 


Camp  and  Canoe 

officer  and  his  crowds;  you  have  forgotten  gro- 
cer's bills  and  club  bills,  business  engagements 
and  dinner  engagements,  the  office  boy  and  the 
desk,  tailor  and  valet,  long  arguments  and  Latin 
prescriptions  —  everything  that  smacks  of  the 
complexity  and  turmoil  of  a  big  city  and  your 
occupation  —  everything  but  the  blackened 
coffee-pot  and  great  days  to  come.  Care  must 
be  piled  high  at  the  Northeast,  for  there  you 
leave  it  behind.  Before  you,  true  sport,  "not 
as  a  dissipation  for  idlers  but  as  a  philosophy 
of  life,  a  bulwark  against  effeminacy  and  de- 
cay." And  in  the  far-off  northern  Maineland 
where  "  still  waves  the  virgin  forest  of  the  new 
world." 

Thoreau  said  other  things  about  this  region 
of  your  joys :  — 

"It  is  a  country  full  of  evergreen  trees,  of 
mossy  silver  birches  and  watery  maples,  the 
ground  dotted  with  insipid,  small,  red  berries, 
and  strewn  with  damp  and  moss-grown  rocks, 
—  a  country  diversified  with  innumerable  lakes 
and  rapid  streams,  peopled  with  trout,  with 


The  Latchstring 


salmon,  shad,  and  pickerel,  and  other  fishes; 
the  forest  resounding  at  rare  intervals  with  the 
note  of  the  chickadee,  the  blue-jay,  and  the 
woodpecker,  the  scream  of  the  fish-hawk  and 
the  eagle,  the  laugh  of  the  loon,  and  the  whistle 
of  ducks  along  the  solitary  streams;  at  night, 
with  the  hooting  of  owls  and  howling  of  wolves; 
in  summer,  swarming  with  myriads  of  black 
flies  and  mosquitoes,  more  formidable  than 
wolves  to  the  white  man.  Such  is  the  home  of 
the  moose,  the  bear,  the  caribou,  the  wolf,  the 
beaver,  and  the  Indian.  Who  shall  describe  the 
inexpressible  tenderness  and  immortal  life  of 
the  grim  forest,  where  Nature,  though  it  be 
mid-winter,  is  ever  in  her  spring,  where  the 
moss-grown  and  decaying  trees  are  not  old,  but 
seem  to  enjoy  a  perpetual  youth;  and  blissful, 
innocent  Nature,  like  a  serene  infant,  is  too 
happy  to  make  a  noise,  except  by  a  few  tink- 
ling, lisping  birds  and  trickling  rills? 

"What  a  place  to  live,  what  a  place  to  die 
and  be  buried  in!   There  certainly  men  would 
live  forever,  and  laugh  at  death  and  the  grave. 
[  i74] 


Camp  and  Canoe 

There  they  could  have  no  such  thoughts  as  are 
associated  with  the  village  graveyard,  —  that 
make  a  grave  out  of  one  of  those  moist  ever- 
green hummocks! 

"Die  and  be  buried  who  will, 

I  mean  to  live  here  still; 
My  nature  grows  ever  more  young 
The  primitive  pines  among." 

The  primitive  pines!  Alas,  they  are  going. 
And  on  many  a  Maine  hill,  where  flourisheth 
the  portable  sawmill,  deadly,  unpoetic,  and 
commercial,  they  sough  no  more.  But  there  is, 
and  for  many  generations  will  be,  a  wealth  of 
spruce  of  many  varieties,  with  frequent  white 
and  gray  and  yellow  birches  to  relieve  what 
otherwise  might  be  an  evergreen  monotony. 

"The  traveler  and  camper-out  in  Maine," 
says  John  Burroughs,  "unless  he  penetrate  its 
more  northern  portions,  has  less  reason  to  re- 
member it  as  a  pine-tree  State  than  a  birch-tree 
State." 

There  are  still  enough,  however,  and  more, 
to  preserve  the  name.  And  up  where  you  are 
[  i75  1 


The  Latch  string 

going  in  the  canoe,  with  your  rods  and  reels  and 
traces,  you  will  sleep  beneath  the  shelter  of  some 
of  the  finest  specimens  in  the  East. 

I  note  in  reading  the  gentle  and  intimate  let- 
ters'of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  that  she  claims  for 
York,  her  home  county,  the  real  giants  of  the 
pine-tree  race:  — 

"I  went  to  see  some  large  pine  trees  down  on 
the  edge  of  Wells,  on  an  out  of  the  way  road, 
but  I  always  knew  these  pines  were  the  biggest 
in  the  State  and  had  a  great  desire  to  see  them. 
Oh,  do  go  next  summer  to  see  the  most  superb 
creatures  that  ever  grew.  I  don't  believe  their 
like  is  in  New  England;  more  than  four  feet 
through  their  great  trunks,  and  standing  so  tall 
that  their  great  green  tops  seem  to  belong  to 
the  next  world.  In  all  my  life  I  never  was  in 
such  glorious  woods." 

You  may  not  find  quite  their  like,  up  where 
you  are  going  in  the  canoe,  but  you  will  see 
many  of  them,  and  hear  them  whisper  an  answer 
to  the  click  of  shod  canoe-poles  round  the  bend. 

In  your  outdoor  wanderings  in  Maine, — 
I  i?61 


Camp  and  Canoe 

by  canoe  or  any  other  means  of  travel, —  do  not 
pass  heedlessly  by  the  Country  Store.  Stop, 
look,  listen  —  especially  listen.  You  will  always 
learn.  This  ancient  and  honorable  institution, 
the  farmer's  forum,  the  villager's  senate,  is  still 
in  our  midst,  in  full  development,  in  undimin- 
ished  usefulness  and  glory.  Age  cannot  wither 
its  powers  nor  custom  stale  its  daily  sessions. 
Thank  Heaven!  It  is  democracy's  continuing 
hope,  the  national  safety-valve,  humanity's 
benefactor.  Any  harried  President  can  average 
up  the  common  sense  of  any  Country  Store, 
just  after  supper,  accept  it,  act  on  it,  do  well, 
and  get  reflected.  Questions  state,  national, 
and  international  are  settled  in  an  atmosphere 
of  molasses,  kerosene,  rock  candy,  and  fly- 
paper, and  settled  right.  In  an  old-fashioned 
setting,  still  there,  of  copper-toed-boot  boxes, 
peach-cans,  mosquito  netting,  ready-made 
pants,  and  mowing-machine  advertisements 
there  is  developed  and  expressed  an  old-fash- 
ioned Abraham  Lincoln  sense  of  justice  and 
right  that  could  be  laid  down  as  moral  law  in 
I  i77l 


"The  Latchstring 

any  parliamentary  body  in  the  world.  The 
board  of  strategy  around  the  old  stove  seldom 
goes  wrong.  May  I  repeat?  Stop  and  listen: 
participate.  You  will  come  out  of  this  colli- 
sion of  Country  Store  intellects  chastened  and 
learned. 


VIII 

FOREST,   FIELD,   AND   FACTORY 

NOR  is  pleasure  all  there  is  in  Maine.  There 
is  business,  much  of  it,  and  good.  There  might 
be  more,  but  it  could  not  be  better. 

Maine  is  the  one  big  raw  material  State  of  the 
New  England  group.  But  while  others  imme- 
diately on  the  west  and  south  have  grown  in 
population  more  than  two  hundred  per  cent  in 
half  a  century,  this  State  has  stood  compara- 
tively still.  There  are  almost  as  many  analyses 
of  the  reasons  for  this  as  there  are  men  with 
curiosity  enough  to  seek  causes.  They  all  lead 
around  in  a  circle,  returning  always  to  the  un- 
explained negative  proposition  that  we  neither 
utilize  opportunities  nor  apply  intensive  meth- 
ods. No  community  ever  completely  realizes, 
but  the  difference  in  Maine  between  what  we 
have  and  what  we  do  is  so  great  as  to  attract 
attention  from  economical  observers  and  ex- 
[  179] 


"The  Latchstring 

perts  in  efficiency.  For  instance,  in  the  matter 
of  its  greatest  natural  asset,  while  Maine  ranks 
third  in  the  Union  in  developed  water-power,  it 
is  at  the  foot  of  the  list  in  proportion  of  devel- 
opment to  total  possibilities.  A  catalogue  of 
sites  undeveloped,  many  of  which  are  even  yet 
unsurveyed,  would  include  parts  of  every  river 
and  stream  in  the  State  and  disclose  many  an 
unpronounceable  Indian  name. 

No  less  a  statesman  than  Gladstone,  observ- 
ing England's  greatest  rival,  said  that  the 
United  States  had  the  natural  basis  for  the 
greatest  continuous  empire  ever  established  by 
man.  This  State,  wedged  up  into  British  terri- 
tory one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  is  one  of  the 
great  units.  With  a  boundary  line  between  its 
northern  counties  and  Canada  four  hundred 
miles  long,  equal  to  that  of  the  Empire  State  of 
New  York,  it  is  altogether  probable  that  the 
great  Premier  found  here  part  of  the  founda- 
tion for  his  statement.  The  question  of  re- 
source is  not  worth  considering  except  in  its 
relation  to  development.  In  a  climate  more 
[  180  ] 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

stimulating  to  human  energy  than  any  in  the 
United  States,  and  at  a  time  when  the  whole 
country  for  very  obvious  reasons  appears  to  be 
entering  on  a  new  and  still  greater  industrial 
activity,  what  are  we  doing  with  the  greatest 
and  most  easily  adapted  of  natural  assets  ? 

The  kind  of  New  England  conservatism,  so 
well  illustrated  by  a  sentence  in  the  latest  look- 
ing backward  book  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  in 
which  he  speaks  of  new  things  making  their 
way  into  practice  against  a  skepticism  amount- 
ing at  times  to  hostility,  has  had  its  day  and 
for  the  most  part  disappeared.  If  it  ever  had 
any  influence  in  retarding  development  in 
Maine,  it  was  not  important.  The  conservatism 
that  has  operated  unfavorably  here,  and  to  a 
large  extent  is  yet  to  be  overcome,  is  due  more 
to  a  lack  of  belief  in  the  value  of  home  resources. 
In  some  cases  it  is  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  what 
the  State  really  possesses.  Local  hesitation  in 
local  investment  is  a  natural  result. 

There  have  been  inspiring  individual  in- 
stances_of  confidence  followed  by  action,  and 
[  181  ] 


T*he  Latch  string 

they  have  produced  far-reaching  results.  The 
making  of  the  two  young  manufacturing  cities, 
Rumford  Falls  and  Millinocket,  almost  in  the 
heart  of  the  wilderness  and  overnight,  was 
Napoleonic  in  conception  and  execution.  Hugh 
J.  Chisholm,  who  was  the  founder  of  the  Andro- 
scoggin  enterprise,  and  whose  success  was  an 
influence  in  attracting  outside  capital  to  the 
great  development  on  the  Penobscot,  was  a 
Maine  man  with  a  belief  in  Maine  advantages, 
and  courage  and  energy  to  use  them.  His  re- 
markable spirit  lives  in  the  succession  and  the 
whole  State  is  a  debtor  to  his  faith  and  foresight. 
A  combination  of  qualities  in  which  prophecy 
and  perseverance  were  important,  added  to  the 
keenest  appreciation  of  surroundings,  enabled 
Franklin  W.  Cram,  another  Maine  man  with 
faith  in  his  State,  to  drive  a  steam  railroad  into 
the  primitive  northland  and  bring  thousands  of 
square  miles  of  rich  territory  within  the  limits 
of  easy  transportation  and  good  business.  He 
saw  Aroostook,  a  great  commonwealth  in  itself, 
with  wonderful  virgin  soil,  vast  tracts  of  valu- 
[  182] 


Fore  sty  Field,  and  Factory 

able  timber,  and  water-powers  without  limit. 
And  to  see  was  but  to  realize.  He  rediscovered 
the  Penobscot  River  basin,  extending  from  the 
St.  John  on  the  north  to  the  Atlantic  on  the 
south,  from  the  Kennebec  watershed  on  the 
west  to  the  St.  Croix,  Machias,  and  Union 
River  basins  on  the  east;  comprising  8500 
square  miles,  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  total 
area  of  the  State;  with  a  great  and  powerful 
river  having  1600  tributary  streams  running 
down  through  its  center  200  miles  to  the  sea; 
with  2,500,000  acres  of  forest  lands  having  a 
stand  of  5,000,000,000  feet  in  spruce,  438,000,- 
ooo  in  cedar,  153,000,000  in  pine,  and  hemlock, 
fir,  and  hard  woods  in  abundance.  Big,  stag- 
gering figures  these.  And  to  rediscover  was 
but  to  have  faith  and  act. 

Another  example  of  business  inspiration  com- 
bined with  firm  reliance  on  the  State's  advan- 
tages is  to  be  found  at  Poland  Springs  in  quite 
another  sphere  of  activity.  Here  three  brothers, 
each  a  big  man  in  his  own  individual  capacity 
and  special  work,  all  Maine-born,  Maine-bred, 
[  183  1 


The  Latchstring 

and  first  of  all  for  Maine,  have  consummated  a 
resort  enterprise  founded  by  their  father  in 
such  a  manner  and  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make 
it  world-famous  and  to  bring  credit  and  distinc- 
tion to  the  State  as  a  whole.  It  is  a  standard  of 
excellence  throughout  the  country,  in  general 
and  in  detail.  And  no  mention  should  be  made 
of  its  success  without  including  the  assistance 
of  loyal  sisters,  who,  with  equal  faith  and  com- 
mensurate energy  and  diligence,  have  added 
no  unimportant  value  to  the  establishment. 
Meanwhile,  all  have  been  much  interested, 
prominent,  and  valuable  factors  in  State  devel- 
opment, quite  independently  of  their  own  im- 
mediate properties,  an  example  of  community 
spirit  and  devotion  worthy  of  the  widest  emu- 
lation. I  say  this  with  the  greatest  pleasure, 
not  because,  with  many  other  citizens,  I  have 
felt  the  pride  of  personal  friendship  for  many 
years,  but  because  I  have  had  unusual  oppor- 
tunities at  home  and  abroad  to  observe  the 
beneficial  results  to  Maine  as  a  State. 
The  story  of  the  new  Aroostook  reads  like  a 
[  184! 


Forest,  Field,  and  Factory 

Holman  Day  romance.  It  is  full  of  excitement 
and  education,  and  its  lesson  can  be  taken  home 
with  profit  by  every  man  of  Maine.  The  indi- 
vidual examples  of  home  faith  are  instructive. 
This  community  example  speaks  volumes.  The 
county  found  itself  only  twenty  years  ago.  It 
was  then  straggling  and  struggling.  Now  there 
is  a  piano  in  every  parlor,  an  automobile  in 
every  barn,  and  from  every  family  a  boy  or  girl 
at  college.  Potatoes.  Some  one  finally  became 
convinced  of  the  special  adaptability  of  the  soil 
for  raising  this  important  crop,  and  followed 
out  the  conviction  to  its  logical  and  money- 
making  conclusion.  The  neighbors  looked  on  in 
amazement.  When  they  saw  him  pay  the  last 
installment  on  the  piano,  subscribe  to  telephone 
stock,  and  take  the  whole  family  to  the  Presque 
Isle  Fair,  Aroostook  County  was  made.  They 
wisely  followed  the  example  of  specialization 
and  put  all  hands  to  the  plough,  the  cultivator, 
and  the  digger.  To-day  there  are  a  hundred 
thousand  acres  within  the  county  lines  given 
over  to  potato-raising,  with  hay  and  grain  as 
I  185  1 


"The  Latchstring 


rotating  crops.  If  any  one  has  anything  to  sell, 
from  a  Panama  Canal  bond  to  something  new 
in  graphophones,  he  strikes  the  trail  for  the 
new  El  Dorado  whose  county  seat  is  Houlton. 
Quality  first.  It  takes  all  the  prizes  at  na- 
tional fairs,  is  recognized  as  paramount  in 
North  America,  and  a  large  part  of  the  annual 
crop  goes  to  all  parts  of  the  country  for  seed 
purposes.  As  to  quantity,  records  have  been 
made  with  intensive  methods  of  more  than  400 
bushels  to  the  acre,  but  the  average  yield  of  the 
county  is  225  bushels.  This  is  the  story  in 
bushels  of  the  growth  of  Aroostook  in  so  short 
a  period  as  two  decades :  — 

1895 1,586,267 

1896 2,371,847 

1897 1,271,175 

1898 2,567,808 

1899 2,894,672 

1900 3,043,879 

1901 4,471,183 

1902 3,112,460 

1903 5,34i,73S 

1904 6,694,071 

[  186] 


Fore  sty  Field,  and  Factory 

1905 7,725,372 

1906 12,329,010 

1907 5,006,845 

1908 1 1,796,506 

1909 9,362,842 

1910 11,587,632 

1911 13,088,998 

1912 12,045,135 

1913 17,688,757 

1914 (about)  15,000,000 

1915 (estimated)  14,500,000 

Aroostook,  land  of  the  morning  sun,  lives  and 
thrives  on  potatoes.  This  crop  overshadows 
everything  else.  There  are  two  periods  of  ex- 
citement in  the  existence  of  every  farmer,  and 
all  seem  to  have  developed  a  wheat-pit  spirit  of 
venture.  What  will  be  the  yield,  and  what  the 
price?  The  new  prosperity  has  brought  the 
county  much  fame  and  many  settlers,  and  has 
also  brought  out,  more  than  ever  before,  its 
great  resources  of  timber  and  water  and  the 
possibilities  of  general  industrial  advance. 
Aroostook's  lesson  is  valuable  and  timely.  With 
the  same  spirit  and  the  application  of  the  same 
[  187  1 


The  Latcbstring 


methods,  its  success  can  be  duplicated  in  every 
county  in  the  State,  and  in  many  of  them  with 
the  same  crop. 

The  interesting,  historical  city  of  Bath  is  re- 
turning to  its  ancient  glory  because  the  home 
faith,  loyalty,  and  enterprise  of  John  S.  Hyde, 
still  a  young  man,  has  revived  shipbuilding. 
This  is  a  story  of  industrial  rediscovery  whose 
value  to  the  State  at  large  depends  on  the 
extent  of  its  application.  There  was  no  music 
quite  like  the  click  of  the  caulking  mallet  on 
the  shores  of  the  Kennebec.  With  the  gradual 
decline  of  wooden  vessels  and  the  coming  of  iron 
and  steel,  these  harmonious  sounds  one  after 
another  died  away,  grass  grew  in  the  yards,  and 
decay  set  in  along  once  busy  water-fronts. 
Blight  settled  down  on  one  of  Maine's  great 
industries  in  a  night.  It  was  more  marked  on 
the  Kennebec  because  here  was  the  Chumming 
center  of  the  great  business.  Here,  too,  was  the 
place  for  revival,  and  Mr.  Hyde  in  his  home 
city  was  its  leading  spirit.  If  wooden  ships, 
why  not  steel?  He  took  over  the  legacy  of  his 
I  188  ] 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

distinguished  father,  revised,  reorganized,  and 
reestablished,  and  today  the  label  "Made  in 
Bath"  is  a  mark  of  quality  and  speed  on  many 
a  Government  ship,  and  any  other  that  has  the 
right  to  wear  it.  It  is  a  common  sight  to  see  a 
new  naval  vessel  steaming  back  into  the  river 
after  trial  with  mast-headed  brooms  to  indi- 
cate that  she  has  exceeded  contract  require- 
ments, another  triumph  of  Maine  confidence 
and  skill. 

These  are  not  all,  to  be  sure,  but  they  are 
conspicuous  and  illuminating  instances  of  what 
can  be  done  by  men  and  communities  when, 
not  content  to  rest  on  the  potential,  they  act 
and  progress  on  the  faith  that  is  in  them.  They 
come  readily  to  the  mind  of  any  one  familiar 
with  Maine's  business  past  and  present  and 
hopeful  of  the  future. 

"Two  great  resources  of  the  State  of  Maine 
stand  preeminent:  (i)  Its  water  powers,  which 
are  unrivaled  in  the  United  States,  and  (2)  its 
forests,  which  still  cover  vast  areas." 

This  was  the  conclusion  of  Henry  Albert 
[  189  1 


The  Latchstring 


Pressey,  of  the  United  States  Geological  Sur- 
vey, after  completing  in  1901  the  only  thorough 
hydrographic  investigation  of  the  State  that 
has  been  made  in  what  might  be  called  modern 
times.  Please  to  note  that  an  expert  from  the 
Central  Government,  whose  investigations  have 
taken  him  all  over  the  country  and  whose  spe- 
cial knowledge  of  the  special  subject  is  com- 
plete, says  in  an  official  report  that  the  water- 
powers  of  Maine  are  —  not  remarkable,  not 
great,  not  the  best  —  but  unrivaled  in  the 
United  States.  And  then  consider  that  in  the 
very  next  sentence  he  expresses  surprise  that 
so  little  has  been  done  to  study  and  protect 
them. 

"Many  years  ago,"  he  continues,  "it  was 
prophesied  of  Maine  that  as  its  industries  de- 
velop its  water  power  must  receive  increased 
attention.  Up  to  this  time,  however,  the  stud- 
ies of  its  water-power  resources  have  been 
meager  and  incomplete." 

While  other  States,  with  less  than  half  the 
power  developed  and  undeveloped  have,  of 
[  190  ] 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

themselves  and  in  cooperation  with  the  United 
States  Government,  been  studying,  surveying, 
conserving,  advertising,  and  otherwise  exploit- 
ing this  great  resource  of  Nature,  Maine  has 
done  little  more  than  permit  this  to  be  carried 
on  by  private  enterprise,  and  by  this  only  in 
part. 

A  special  Government  census  of  the  devel- 
oped water-powers  of  the  United  States  was 
made  in  1908,  and  at  that  time  this  State 
ranked  third  with  343,096  horse-power.  New 
York,  with  the  great  Niagara  power  making  up 
a  large  part  of  the  total,  was  first,  having  a 
development  of  885,862,  and  California  second, 
with  466,  777.  The  returns  showed  that  in  the 
whole  country  there  were  31,537  water-powers 
in  use,  and  of  these  only  602  were  of  a  capacity 
of  1000  horse-power  or  more.  These  develop- 
ments were  generating  a  total  horse-power  of 
5,356,680,  over  52,827  wheels;  or  an  average 
development  per  wheel  of  about  100  horse- 
power. The  six  New  England  States  had  5700, 
generating  a  total  of  1,032,427  horse-power, 
I  191  1 


The  Latchstring 


over  10,325  wheels.   These  powers  were  thus 
distributed :  — 


States 

Water- 
powers 

Wheels 

Horse-power 

Connecticut  

807 

icj.6 

Il8  I4.C 

Maine  

1222 

27Q7 

•J4.-I  006 

Massachusetts  

I"?  70 

27J.Q 

260,182 

New  Hampshire  

876 

I70Q 

181,167 

Rhode  Island  

IQI 

187 

•77  rfiij 

Vermont  

1148 

IO4.7 

QO  672 

5700 

10,325 

1,032,427 

A  computation  of  undeveloped  water-power 
in  Maine,  —  potentialities  running  to  waste,  - 
no  man  has  made.  There  are  no  data  on  which 
to  base  even  a  reasonable  imagination.  It  has 
been  a  common,  if  careless,  saying  for  years 
that  the  unharnessed  waters  of  the  State  could 
operate  every  steam  railroad  and  every  factory 
in  New  England.  While  this  is  probably  true, 
no  one  knows  how  much  more  they  could  do. 
Who,  for  instance,  has  ever  calculated  other 
storage  possibilities  like  those  of  the  Union 
Water-Power  Company  on  the  Androscoggin 
and  of  the  Great  Northern  Paper  Company  on 
[  192  1 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

the  Penobscot.  All  the  estimates,  however, 
give  to  Maine  more  undeveloped  water-power 
than  to  any  other  State  in  the  Union.  A  special 
report  made  to  the  Boston  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce says :  "There  is  one  river  in  Maine  that 
will  yield  200,000  additional  horse-power  when- 
ever it  is  harnessed.  This  will  mean  something 
like  $12,000,000  added  to  the  explicit  wealth 
of  the  State,  every  year.  Compute  the  other 
possibilities  of  the  same  character,  and  then 
try  and  realize  what  the  unused  water-power 
in  New  England  means  as  a  definite  asset." 

In  accordance  with  an  act  of  the  legislature, 
Walter  Wells  made  an  investigation  of  the 
water-powers  of  the  State  and  published  a 
report  in  the  year  1869.  This  is  all  I  can  find 
that  Maine  as  a  State  has  ever  done  on  this 
vital  subject.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  valuable 
contribution  to  the  knowledge  of  the  time.  But 
this  was  forty-seven  years  ago,  and  much  has 
happened  since  then,  including,  you  will  please 
bear  in  mind,  the  correlation  of  electricity  to 
running  water. 

[  193  ] 


The  Latchstring 

It  is  rare  to  find  enthusiasm  in  a  Government 
report,  usually  made  up  of  cold  facts  and  figures 
stated  in  unromantic  calmness  and  with  a  pre- 
cision in  which  neither  prejudice  nor  sentiment 
finds  play.  But  Mr.  Pressey  goes  still  farther 
in  his  conclusions  on  Maine  as  a  power  State, 
and  finds  no  territory  in  North  America  that 
can  be  compared  with  it  in  potential  water- 
force. 

"No  other  tract  of  country  of  the  same  ex- 
tent on  the  continent"  he  says,  "is  so  well 
watered  —  supplied  with  lakes  and  streams 
well  distributed  —  as  in  Maine." 

In  addition  to  this  main  fact  of  tremendous 
natural  storage  we  find  in  supplemental  reports 
by  other  Government  experts  that  geologic  and 
forest  conditions,  both  great  influences  in  water 
resources,  are  as  nearly  perfect  as  can  be  for 
maximum  results. 

Without  taking  into  the  calculation  hundreds 

of  small  lakes  and  ponds  tributary  to  the  rivers 

and  streams,  there  is  in  Maine  one  square  mile 

of  inland  water  surface  to  each  14.3   square 

[  194  ] 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

miles  of  land.  Other  facts  of  the  State's  lake 
systems,  quickly  appreciated  by  the  lay  mind, 
may  be  found  in  this  interesting  table :  — 


Name  of  system 

Num- 
ber of 
lakes 

Aggre- 
gate 
area  (sq. 
miles) 

Ratio  of 
lake  sur- 
face to 
basin 
surface 

Average 
area  of 
lakes  (sq* 
miles) 

Saco  

109 

84 

1  :  16.6 

0.71; 

Androscoggin  

148 

313 

I  :  17 

1.41 

Kennebec  

Hi 

4.1:0 

i  :  I2.Q 

1.44. 

Penobscot  

467 

585 

I  :  14 

I.2C 

St.  Croix  

61 

1  1O 

I  :6.5 

2.QC 

St.  John  

206 

3  CO 

i  :  21.  i 

I.7S 

Dennys,  etc  

22 

38 

I  :o.8 

1.72 

Machias,  East  and  West  

56 

68 

i  :  11.7 

1.  2O 

Narraguagus  

38 

2S 

:  22 

O.6iC 

Union  (not  including  islands)  .  . 
St.  George,  Sheepscot,  etc  
Presumpscot  

43 

72 

4<; 

60 

SO 

Q7 

:8 
:i6 
:  "M 

i-39 
0.70 

2.IO 

Royal,  etc  

6 

4. 

:  4.2 

0.66 

Mousam  

10 

:26 

0.7  1 

Piscataqua  

22 

16 

:  34 

O.72 

Total  

l62O 

230O 

The  Mississippi  River  is  2800  miles  long.  The 
altitude  of  its  source  at  Lake  Itasca  is  but  little 
greater  than  that  of  the  Rangeleys,  and  the 
Androscoggin,  their  outlet,  is  only  158  miles 
long.  Lake  Superior,  the  source  of  the  St. 
[  195  1 


"The  Latchstring 

Lawrence,  is  1800  miles  from  the  sea,  but  its 
elevation  is  only  two  thirds  that  of  Moosehead, 
the  source  of  the  Kennebec,  which  in  all  its 
tortuous  course  runs  only  160  miles  to  tide- 
water at  Augusta. 

With  a  glance  at  this  table  of  the  elevations 
of  the  larger  lakes,  you  will  at  once  appreciate 
the  tremendous  water-force  concentrated  in 
short  distances :  — 

Elevation 

Name  above  sea 

level  (feet) 

Moosehead  Lake • 1023 

Wood  Lake 1094 

Attean  Pond *°94 

Long  Pond 1094 

Schoodic  Lakes 300 

Sebec  Lake 375 

Baskahegan  Lake 400 

Pamalumcook,  The  Twins,  and  Milinokett  Lakes 500 

Ripogenus  Lake 878 

Chesuncook  Lake 900 

Cauquomogomoc  Lake 930 

Squapan  Lake 580 

Sebago  Lake 247 

Umbagog  Lake 1256 

Richardson  Lake 1456 

Mooselookmeguntic  Lake 1486 

Rangeley  Lakes 1511 

Mattagamon  Lake 850 

Chamberlain  Lake 926 

Pomgocwahem  and  Churchill  Lakes 914 

[    196] 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

Elevation 

Name  above  sea 

level  (feet) 

Allegash  Lake 950 

Eagle  Lake 579 

Square  and  Cross  Lakes 587 

Long  Lake 603 

Portage  Lake 625 

Fish  River  Lake 660 

Chiputneticook  Lake 382 

Chiputneticook  (Grand)  Lake 449 

The  variation  in  the  flow  of  Maine  rivers  and 
streams  Mr.  Pressey  found  very  small  in  com- 
parison with  the  power  waters  in  other  parts  of 
the  country.  Considering  the  possibilities  of 
easy  control  at  the  outlets  he  says  the  uniform- 
ity of  discharge,  so  essential  for  continuous 
power  purposes,  "  is  almost  unparalleled." 

As  to  the  geologic  conditions  so  important  in 
the  matter  of  permanency,  Mr.  George  Otis 
Smith,  United  States  Government  geologist, 
says:  "The  State  is  favored  with  rocks  of  a 
hardness  sufficient  to  make  the  present  chan- 
nels of  the  streams  permanent,  while  the  com- 
plicated structure  of  the  rocks  and  the  conse- 
quent alternations  of  beds  relatively  hard  and 
soft  are  the  cause  of  some  of  the  abrupt  changes 
[  197] 


"The  Latchstring 

in  the  grade  of  the  rivers  whereby  falls  and  rips 
succeed  quiet  reaches." 

Another  very  important  element  in  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  water-supply  and  the  uniform- 
ity of  its  flow  is  Maine's  forest  area,  which  fur- 
nishes a  great  business  in  itself  and  constitutes 
the  second  great  natural  resource  of  the  State. 
Of  the  29,895  square  miles  of  land  surface, 
21,000  are  covered  with  forests,  nearly  one  half 
of  which,  it  is  estimated,  will  never  be  cut,  thus 
serving  as  a  perpetual  factor  in  water  conserva- 
tion. 

The  lumber  industry  has  been  for  many  years 
one  of  the  most  important  in  the  State,  and  the 
manufacture  of  pulp  and  paper  has  now  as- 
sumed a  position  in  the  front  rank.  There  are 
thirty  paper  mills  in  Maine  and  as  many  pulp 
mills,  with  a  total  investment  of  $30,000,000 
and  an  annual  product  valued  at  $18,000,000. 
The  growth  of  timber  in  the  State  aggregates 
between  600,000,000  and  700,000,000  feet  each 
year,  so  that  at  the  present  rate  of  cutting  the 
forests  are  nearly  holding  their  own.  By  sys- 
[  198  1 


Forest,  Field,  and  Factory 

tematic  cutting  under  forestry  regulations, 
however,  the  yield  of  the  timber  lands  could  be 
greatly  increased  and  the  young  growth  be  so 
preserved  and  fostered  that  the  yearly  output 
would  be  materially  augmented.  Whatever  has 
been  done  in  this  extremely  important  matter 
has  also  been  left  largely  to  private  enterprise. 
The  practical  foresters  of  the  great  paper  com- 
panies are  constantly  studying  the  situation, 
and  their  advice,  based  on  the  experience  of 
many  years  in  the  woods,  could  well  be  taken 
by  the  State  for  the  general  good.  Mr.  Fred  A. 
Gilbert,  of  the  Great  Northern  Company,  has 
already  pointed  out  in  a  published  pamphlet 
that  the  annual  loss  to  Maine  through  failure 
properly  to  utilize  its  wealth  of  timber  is  more 
than  $10,000,000  on  five  of  the  common  soft- 
wood kinds,  spruce,  pine,  fir,  hemlock,  and 
cedar.  He  also  points  out  the  great  danger  to 
the  standing  growth  through  waste  and  decay 
and  losses  by  fire  and  wind. 

"We  are  apt  to  think,"  he  says,  "of  the  value 
of  timber  as  being  the  value  to  the  owner  of  the 
r[  i99l 


The  Latchstring 


land.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  competent  authori- 
ties estimate  that  for  every  thousand  feet  of 
timber  marketed  there  is  a  total  average  ex- 
penditure of  more  than  $16,  of  which  but  a 
small  part  goes  to  the  original  owner.  There 
seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  the  State 
should  not  turn  most  of  this  annual  waste  of 
650,000,000  feet  of  timber  into  $10,000,000 
cash,  to  be  expended  in  the  State  each  year,  as 
interest,  and  at  the  same  time  retain  its  princi- 
pal, the  standing  timber,  unimpaired." 

Meanwhile,  if  the  Maine  farmer  would  em- 
ploy some,  at  least,  of  the  intensive  methods 
which  the  Western  farmer  applies  to  his  crops, 
if  he  would  make  use  of  the  experience  of  his 
Aroostook  neighbor,  he  might  enjoy  equal  if  not 
better  results.  The  climate  and  soil  have  been 
found  to  be  especially  adapted  to  the  growth 
and  maturity  of  hay,  grain,  potatoes,  sweet 
corn,  apples,  and  all  Northern  vegetables  and 
small  fruits.  The  State  ranks  first  in  the  Union 
in  yield  per  acre  and  quality  of  three  of  these, 
potatoes,  sweet  corn,  and  apples.  The  Maine 

[  200  ] 


MONTRKAL  MKLONS  IN  MAINE 


Forest)  Field,  and  Factory 

farmer's  fields  and  barns  lie  within  a  twelve- 
hour  transportation  of  seven  million  consumers, 
while  the  great  canning  industry,  in  which 
Maine  was  a  pioneer  and  is  still  a  leader,  gives 
him  a  market  at  his  very  door.  And  not  the 
least  of  his  trade  advantages  is  the  near  and 
easy  market  made  up  of  half  a  million  visitors 
who  each  year  actually  come  to  him  begging  to 
buy.  What  more  can  he  ask?  The  detail  of 
what  can  be  done  to  add  many  millions  to  the 
agricultural  wealth  of  Maine  would  fill  volumes. 
The  first  great  necessity  is  the  cultivation  of 
appreciation;  the  second,  the  application  of 
efficient  effort. 

The  development  of  steam  and  electric  trans- 
portation stands  ready  to  meet  the  demands  of 
any  industrial  and  agricultural  advance.  The 
principal  railroad  system  of  the  State,  again 
happily  free  from  outside  entanglements  and 
quite  independent  of  speculative  aviations  in 
Wall  Street,  is  of  Maine,  for  Maine,  and  by 
Maine.  Its  operating  management  appreciates 
and  acts.  Safety  first,  State  development 

[   201    1 


"The  Latchstring 


second.  It  is  alive  and  full  of  ideas  and  effi- 
ciency. Its  hope  is  to  see  Maine  come  com- 
pletely into  her  own. 

Maine  is  a  State  of  wonderful  recreative  reali- 
ties. No  less  than  these  are  its  business  oppor- 
tunities. 


IX 

BY  WAY  OF  CONCLUSION 

NOR  are  recreation  and  business  all. 

Having  the  run  of  the  Speaker's  office  in 
Washington  in  the  great  Reed  days,  as  most 
Maine  men  did,  I  happened  to  be  reading  a 
Portland  paper  there  one  morning  when  the 
card  of  an  eminent  Southern  gentleman  —  it 
was  John  Wise  —  was  brought  in. 

"Show  him  in,"  drawled  the  Speaker,  in  one 
of  his  happy,  leisurely  moods. 

"Who's  running  this  Government,  anyway?" 
blustered  the  Virginian,  entering  in  great  im- 
portance and  assumed  indignation. 

"The  great  and  the  good,  John,  of  course. 
Be  calm."  —  I  can  see  the  twinkle  and  hear  the 
twang  even  now. 

"Well,  the  great  and  the  good  must  all  live 
in  Maine,  then.  Here  I  come  up  here  on  busi- 
ness with  the  Secretary  of  State  —  Mr.  Elaine 
[  203  ] 


The  Latchstring 


from  Maine.  I  call  to  pay  my  respects  to  the 
acting  Vice-President  —  Mr.  Frye  from  Maine. 
I  wish  to  consult  the  leader  of  the  United  States 
Senate  —  Mr.  Hale  from  Maine.  I  would  talk 
over  a  tariff  matter  with  the  chairman  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  Committee  —  Mr.  Dingley 
from  Maine.  There  is  a  naval  bill  in  the  House 
in  which  I  am  greatly  interested  —  Chairman 
Boutelle  from  Maine.  I  wish  an  addition  to  the 
public  building  in  Richmond  —  Chairman  Mil- 
liken  from  Maine.  And  here  I  am  in  the  august 
presence  of  the  great  Speaker  of  the  greatest 
parliamentary  body  in  the  world  —  Mr.  Reed 
from  Maine." 

"Yes,  John,  the  great,  and  the  good,  and  the 
wise.  The  country  is  safe." 

And  they  went  out  laughing  to  lunch  with 
the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  —  Mr.  Fuller  from  Maine. 

Men  there  were  then.  There  were  many  be- 
fore them,  there  have  been  many  since.  These 
Maine  gave  to  the  nation,  and  they  gave  of 
themselves  freely  to  the  public  service.  Big 
I  204  ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

brains,  natural,  powerful  leaders  among  men, 
the  easy  product  of  the  State.  Just  as  Ohio  fi- 
nally settled  down  into  the  steady  mother  of 
Presidents,  so  did  great  men  become  a  habit  in 
Maine.  The  story  of  George  Evans,  William 
Pitt  Fessenden,  Blaine,  and  Reed,  in  one  book, 
which  should  soon  be  written,  would  read  like 
the  Atherton  romance  of  Hamilton  and  present 
a  composite  picture  of  great  intellectual  forces, 
if  not  of  great  things  done. 

The  men  of  Maine  have  been,  are,  and  will 
be  its  greatest  asset.  But  to  produce  results  in 
their  fullness  at  home,  they  must  first  appreci- 
ate opportunity  at  home  and  then  act  with 
commensurate  confidence  and  courage.  His- 
tory and  ancestry,  both  quite  up  to  the  natural 
charm  of  the  State,  are  great  consoling  influ- 
ences, but  they  do  not  harness  falling  waters  or 
build  trolley  lines  into  the  wilderness.  They  are 
secure  and  nothing  can  subtract  from  them. 
But  they  can  be  amplified,  and  thus  can  they 
be  best  respected  and  thus  only  made  useful. 

Together  with  the  other  New  England  States, 
[  205  ] 


The  Latchstring 

Maine,  after  settling  down,  seemed  content  to 
settle  back.  Her  great  potential  forces  remained 
potential  only,  and  development  waited  while 
we  gazed  at  the  stars  in  Washington.  Her  great 
men  belonged  more  to  the  nation  than  to  the 
State.  The  others  yielded  to  an  inclination 
toward  inertia  and  existence  by  reflected  glory. 
If  there  were  any  who  did  not,  they  found  scope 
for  their  restlessness  in  the  great  West,  and 
pioneered  new  States.  And  of  all  the  New  Eng- 
land impressions  on  the  empire  beyond  the 
Mississippi  —  and  they  are  many  and  pro- 
nounced —  the  Maine  mark  is  not  the  least. 
Therefore,  seeing  the  great,  the  good,  and  the 
wise  of  their  own  kith  engaged  in  the  laudable 
and  busy  occupation  of  saving  the  country  in 
general  and  building  up  the  West  in  particular, 
it  was  natural  for  the  plodders  at  home  to  lose 
faith  in  their  surroundings  and  powers.  Hence 
the  halting  process,  and  a  dormant  period 
which  would  have  been  well-nigh  fatal  had  not 
nature  asserted  itself  and  opportunity  become 
blatant.  Yankee  ingenuity,  even  if  unprompted 
[  206  ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

by  thrift  or  necessity,  cannot  long  sit  complai- 
sant and  watch  resources  waste  themselves. 
Sometimes  we  get  a  jolt  from  without  —  many 
a  man  has  come  here  to  play  and  remained  to 
invest  —  sometimes  through  travel  and  obser- 
vation. It  gave  me  more  than  pleasure  to  hear 
this  from  a  Maine  bank  president  who  returned 
last  fall  from  a  tour  of  the  Pacific  States  and 
a  visit  to  the  two  California  expositions :  — 

"When  I  see  how  little  of  real  worth-while 
substance  they  have  out  there,  and  how  much 
they  do  with  it,  and  then  realize  how  much  we 
have  here  in  Maine,  and  how  little  we  do  with 
it,  I  begin  to  think  we  are  losing  time  and  wast- 
ing opportunity.  Just  before  taking  the  train 
at  Los  Angeles  I  asked  a  leading  banker :  'What 
keeps  you  going?'  *  Fruit  and  Eastern  money/ 
was  his  ready  answer.  It  set  me  thinking,  and 
I  've  been  thinking  ever  since." 

I  wonder  how  many  of  our  people  realize  that 
our  Maine-owned  Maine  railroad  was  the  only 
steam  transportation  company  in  New  England 
to  earn  and  pay  a  normal  dividend  in  1915. 
I  207  ] 


T'he  Latchstring 


Meanwhile,  if  you  lay  store  by  census  figures, 
—  and  who  does  not  —  consider  that  for  the 
sixty  years  from  1850  to  1910  the  State  of  Maine 
gained  in  population  only  27  per  cent,  while 
Rhode  Island  grew  268  per  cent,  Massachusetts 
239  per  cent,  Connecticut  201  per  cent,  and  New 
Hampshire  36  per  cent.  Vermont  alone  showed 
a  smaller  increase,  13  per  cent.  Taking  State 
areas  into  the  account  the  figures  are  still  more 
eloquent.  Maine  has  29,895  square  miles  of 
territory,  and  for  this  period  grew  in  population 
only  159,202.  The  other  five  States  of  New 
England,  with  a  total  area  of  only  32,078  square 
miles,  grew  3,672,273.  The  table  of  "Popula- 
tion per  square  mile"  tells  its  own  story  and, 
if  unpleasant,  is  not  uninteresting :  — 


Population  per  square  mile 

1850 

IQIO 

Maine  

20 

2<; 

New  Hampshire  

TC 

48 

Vermont  

34 

•?Q 

Massachusetts  

124 

4IQ 

Connecticut 

76 

2^O 

Rhode  Island  

140 

cic 

208 1 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

Of  Maine's  total  gain  in  population  of  159,202 
from  1850  to  1910,  the  cities  of  the  State  con- 
tributed 123,549.  The  only  counties  to  show 
increase  outside  of  the  cities  were  Aroostook, 
Penobscot,  and  Piscataquis.  There  was  an 
actual  loss  for  the  period,  outside  of  the  cities 
and  the  three  counties  named,  of  37,190. 

All  of  which  goes  to  show  that  if  capital  flies 
out  of  the  west  window,  men  will  not  come  in  at 
the  door.  Capital  will,  of  course,  seek  the  best 
returns  irrespective  of  geography  and  local 
pride,  and  cannot  be  blamed.  Local  pride  is 
sentiment,  and  dividends,  a  living.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  a 
good  thing  at  home  is  better  in  the  long  run  than 
a  better  thing  abroad,  for  it  develops  home  re- 
sources and  increases  the  value  of  all  kinds  of 
home  property.  Local  pride  should,  at  least,  be 
indulged  to  the  extent  of  a  hearing,  thorough 
investigation,  and  some  preference,  even  if 
things  for  the  time  being  are  not  equal. 

It  is  not  a  long  way  to  the  turn,  nor  is  it  dark. 
Oftentimes  we  simply  will  not  see.  A  small 
[  209  ] 


"The  Latchstring 

example  sometimes  illustrates  a  tendency  that 
may  be  large  and  serious. 

Last  summer,  in  a  brief  and  rather  amateur- 
ish tour  of  investigation,  from  the  center  of  a 
summer  cottage  and  hotel  population  of  at  least 
twenty-five  thousand  I  drove  a  dozen  miles 
through  a  fairly  good  farming  country,  and 
found  not  one  farmer  along  the  road  raising 
anything  for  this  new  and  easy  market.  And  in 
July,  August,  and  September  the  people  of  those 
resorts  were  buying  such  vegetables  as  cucum- 
bers and  lettuce  from  Boston.  While  your  so- 
called  thrifty  down-east  farmer  sat  on  the  shed 
steps  ruminating  a  straw  and  hard  times.  In 
the  published  reports  of  the  Boston  Chamber 
of  Commerce  on  New  England  production,  you 
will  find,  for  another  small  example,  that,  while 
this  section  of  the  country  is  particularly  well 
adapted  to  raising  poultry  and  eggs  for  ship- 
ment to  other  markets,  it  actually  produces 
only  about  one  fifth  of  its  own  consumption. 
We  often  pay  five  cents  for  an  Oregon  apple, 
and  it  is  getting  more  difficult  each  year  to  buy 
[  210  ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

a  native  turkey  for  a  New  England  Thanksgiv- 
ing dinner.  Other  like  instances  in  other  lines 
of  Eastern  production  might  be  cited,  but  these 
are  enough. 

There  is  something  wrong  somewhere  in  the 
New  England  system  of  economy.  The  only 
hopeful  consideration  about  it  is  that  the  New 
Englander  is  beginning  to  find  it  out.  And  not 
the  least  of  the  influences  in  the  process  of  slow 
but  sure  awakening  in  Maine  is  the  summer 
visitor.  He's  a  joy,  a  profit,  and  an  educator, 
and  can't  be  treated  too  well.  I  would  begin  by 
muffling  the  motor-boats. 

I  feel  just  like  writing  this  this  morning.  The 
subject  ought  to  receive  at  least  partial  justice, 
for  I  had  my  own  personal  experience  with  the 
nonsense  last  night.  It  is  not  a  topic  entitled, 
for  fair  treatment,  to  the  perspective  of  either 
time  or  distance,  as  all  topics  are  —  all  but  this. 
This  is  entitled  to  nothing.  It  is  an  enormity 
that  should  be  struck  while  the  anger  is  hot  and 
at  a  time  as  near  as  possible  to  its  committal. 
With  this  inadequate  foreword,  let  us  proceed, 

[211   ] 


The  Latchstring 


lamely  and  mildly  though  it  be,  and  even  with 
the  certain  knowledge  that  I  shall  fall  far  short 
of  framing  any  indictment  to  fit  the  hideousness 
of  the  iniquity. 

It  was  one  of  those  calm,  still,  echoing  nights 
on  the  coast,  when  even  the  undertow  to  sleep 
had  gone;  one  of  those  nights  made  for  com- 
plete, unconscious  rest,  and  that  decent  sleep 
which  Josie  Sadler  used  to  embalm  in  descrip- 
tive song;  a  night  when  you  either  sleep  on  the 
porch  or  open  all  the  windows  in  order  that  the 
boundless  silence  of  all  outdoors  may  make 
more  peaceful  your  peaceful  slumbers.  And  we 
were  all  awakened  no  less  than  a  dozen  times 
by  those  senseless,  criminal,  exasperating,  sput- 
tering motor-boats  which  exhaust  their  gaso- 
line engines  above  the  water-line  and  without 
mufflers.  Some  of  the  offenders,  in  apparent  ef- 
fort to  outstrip  their  fellow  offenders  in  offense, 
run  the  exhaust  pipe  out  at  the  side  of  the  boat 
and  thus  get  the  added  effect  of  a  sounding- 
board.  There  are  all  pitches,  from  thundering 
basses  to  high,  metallic  tenors.  In  order  to 
[  212  ]. 


By  W^ay  of  Conclusion 

avoid  what  the  hypnotist  calls  the  monotony  of 
stimulation,  they  "skip"  at  irregular  intervals, 
and  this  makes  it  certain  that  you  do  not  even 
doze  for  any  considerable  time.  And  on  an 
otherwise  silent  night,  and  all  night,  the  whole 
vicious,  nerve-racking,  sleep-killing  fusillade 
came  ashore  with  gatling  staccato  and  siege- 
gun  powers  of  destruction.  I  say  criminal,  be- 
cause there  is  a  law  of  the  State  against  this 
particular  form  of  foolishness.  But  the  con- 
stable, or  the  sheriff,  or  whoever  it  may  be 
that  should  invoke  it,  seems  loath  to  act  be- 
cause —  probably  —  it  might  make  trouble 
for  some  of  his  neighbors,  which  at  most  could 
only  be  putting  the  exhaust  under  water  or 
adding  an  inexpensive  muffler  to  the  equip- 
ment. 

Which  reminds  me  of  a  hired  man  of  our  vil- 
lage of  years  ago,  in  whose  ancestry  was  a 
grandmother  who  saw  a  man  kill  his  wife  and 
put  the  body  in  a  well.  He  used  to  brag  about 
this  a  good  deal  —  not  the  killing,  but  his 
grandmother's  seeing  it.  Nothing  was  ever 
I  213  ] 


The  Latchstring 


done  about  the  murder,  and  one  day  some  one 
asked  him  what  action  she  took. 

"Oh,  Lor',"  he  replied,  "she  just  did  n't  do 
nuthin'.  She  wa'n't  no  hand  to  make  trouble." 

But  last  night.  After  the  lobstermen  and 
hake  fishermen  had  exhausted  —  this  word  in 
two  senses — everybody's  patience  and  sput- 
tered home,  the  milkmen  and  vegetable  ped- 
dlers came  pounding  into  the  cove  about  half- 
past  four,  and  the  tired  little  colony,  seeking 
rest  and  quiet  from  ceaseless  metropolitan  roar, 
gave  up  in  despair. 

I  thought  I  might  be  exaggerating  in  these 
few  heartfelt,  morning-after  words.  But  in 
looking  the  situation  over  in  calmer,  saner  mo- 
ments, with  a  broader,  more  hopeful  view  of 
life,  with  all  kinds  of  charity  and  no  malice  at 
all,  I  am  impelled  to  make  the  revising  insertion 
that  I  have  understated  the  case  and  that  it 
grows  in  enormity  the  more  and  more  calmly 
it  is  considered. 

Two  instances,  —  one  bearing  on  the  public 
health  phase,  the  other  purely  commercial;  dol- 
[214] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

lars  and  cents;  bread  and  butter — and  cake; 
one  must  have  cake :  — 

My  neighbor,  acting  on  his  physician's  ad- 
vice, added  to  his  cottage  a  sleeping-porch 
large  enough  for  the  entire  family  of  five.  They 
came  earlier  than  usual  in  the  spring,  more  on 
account  of  this  than  anything  else,  and  with  all 
the  joys  of  anticipation.  All  thoroughly  enjoyed 
the  new  porch,  for  its  novelty  and  freshness  as 
well  as  for  its  health-giving  qualities.  One  of 
the  children,  having  suffered  from  a  long  illness 
in  the  winter,  began  to  pick  up  wonderfully, 
and  medicine  bottles  went  to  the  scrap-heap  — 
proper  place.  Then  one  calm  and  fatal  night. 
Then  another,  and  another.  It  seemed  like  a 
personal  bombardment,  like  last  night.  The 
joys  and  benefits  of  outdoor  sleeping  are  no 
more  and  the  expensive  porch  is  useless.  The 
beds  have  been  moved  in  and  a  lot  of  whole- 
some air  has  to  be  excluded  with  the  noise.  The 
father  argued  with  the  boatmen  and  officers  of 
the  village  corporation.  Nothing  happened. 

The  owner  of  a  large  oceangoing  steam  yacht 
[215] 


The  Latchstring 

told  me  in  New  York  last  winter  that  he  en- 
joyed nothing  in  all  his  cruising  quite  so  much 
as  the  small  but  deep  and  picturesque  harbors 
of  the  Maine  coast.  One  in  particular,  which  he 
named,  he  had  frequented  for  years,  and  once, 
and  sometimes  twice,  each  summer  the  yacht 
would  fit  out  there  for  cruises  down  the  Nova 
Scotia  and  Labrador  coasts,  spending  never  less 
than  a  thousand  dollars,  and  sometimes  fifteen 
hundred,  for  fuel  and  provisions.  Now  he  never 
comes  to  the  harbor,  and  when  asked  why,  he 
replied  with  no  little  show  of  feeling :  — 

"Your  cursed  motor-boats  without  mufflers. 
Could  n't  any  of  us  sleep  nights,  or  have  any 
peace  days." 

Here  was  a  matter  of  simple  business  for  a 
little  town  where  a  thousand  dollars  is  a  large 
sum  of  money.  The  yacht-owner  took  pains  to 
make  this  known  to  the  selectmen  and  the  offi- 
cers of  the  yacht  club.  Nothing  happened. 

I  have  dilated  on  this  sidelight  of  Maine  coast 
life,  because,  while  it  seems  inconsequential,  it 
is  really  becoming  a  very  serious  matter.  Peo- 
[216] 


By  W^ay  of  Conclusion 

pie  who  come  to  these  shores  and  lakes  —  and 
the  abuse  is  growing  fast  on  the  lakes — have 
tired  nerves,  and  seek  rest  and  quiet.  Ninety 
per  cent  of  the  men  who  own  and  operate 
the  disturbance  are  dependent  on  them  for  a 
large  part  of  their  livelihood.  It  is  more  a  mat- 
ter of  thoughtlessness  and  lack  of  realization 
than  anything  else.  And  the  remedy,  you  ask? 
A  consistent,  persistent,  unanimous  agitation 
in  every  suffering  summer  colony.  Quote  pleas- 
antly but  firmly  Laurence  Hutton's  definition 
of  a  gentleman,  "A  man  who  respects  himself 
and  the  feelings  of  others."  This  failing,  the 
law  as  it  is  and  more  if  necessary,  even  at  the 
risk  of  "making  trouble." 

Maine  ought  to  discover  herself.  And  follow 
discovery  with  initiative,  faith  with  efficiency, 
opportunity  with  intensiveness.  These,  and 
the  new  spirit  is  here,  industrial,  agricultural, 
social,  and  civic.  These,  and  the  new  State  is 
established.  By  its  wonderful  resources  of 
Nature  it  will  be  observed.  By  its  fruits  only 
will  its  men  be  judged.  The  summer  visitor  and 
[  217  ] 


The  Latch  string 

the  Philadelphia  banker  will  not  help  those  who 
do  not  help  themselves. 

"Why,  you  Maine  people  don't  seem  to  have 
any  idea  what  you  have  down  here,"  said  a 
New  Yorker  at  Bethel  last  spring.  The  war  had 
kept  him  from  Europe;  it  was  his  first  visit  to 
the  State,  and  he  came  to  recuperate  from  ill- 
ness. "Why  don't  you  shout  about  it?" 

It  is  not  necessary  to  shout,  but  we  might 
whisper  it  along  the  line.  We  read  and  hear 
much  about  the  potential  future  of  States,  and 
cities,  and  other  communities.  A  fine  thing  to 
think  about,  but  if  we  only  think,  a  poor  asset. 
It  is  hard  to  borrow  money  on  paper  possibili- 
ties, however  logical  the  prospectus  may  paint 
them. 

But  appreciation  is  a  long  and  important 
step.  We  have  taken  it,  and  there  is  ample 
ground  for  the  belief  that  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era  has  come.  More  than  this,  we  have 
arrived  at  the  stage  where  local  minds  are  flexi- 
ble and  suggestion  has  value. 

An  automobile  party  of  fifteen  tired  men  and 
[218] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

women,  in  three  big  touring  cars,  turned  up  at 
the  Lafayette  Hotel  in  Portland  one  evening  in 
the  summer  of  1912,  and  called  for  maps.  They 
had  come  on  from  New  York  for  a  tour  of  New 
England,  and  planned  to  spend  ten  days  in 
Maine  motoring  through  the  lake  country  and 
along  the  seacoast.  That  afternoon  they  had 
experienced  the  road  from  Kittery  to  Portland, 
the  one  highway  used  more  than  any  other  in 
the  State,  and  at  that  time  for  the  most  part 
in  all  its  prehistoric  roughness.  The  maps  they 
requested  were  for  the  shortest  route  to  New 
Hampshire.  Early  next  morning  they  took  it. 
Multiply  this  instance  by  hundreds,  covering 
the  period  of  time  which  the  State  took  to  wake 
up  to  good  roads,  and  you  will  get  some  idea  of 
the  loss  of  good  business  by  bad  economy.  It 
so  happened  in  this  case  that  the  conversation 
in  the  hotel  office  was  overheard  by  a  Maine 
man  with  a  flexible  mind,  State  pride,  initiative, 
influence,  power,  and  endurance  in  agitation. 
The  legislature  the  next  winter  appropriated 
two  million  dollars  for  State  highways,  and 
[  219  ] 


The  Latchstring 


Maine  is  at  last  on  the  automobile  map.  You 
can  now  motor  from  Kittery  to  Portland  in  joy 
and  comfort.  Still  in  the  momentum  of  com- 
mon sense  and  good  work  the  following  legis- 
lature provided  for  a  fine  avenue  through  the 
wilderness  from  Jackman  to  Kineo.  It  taps  the 
main  thoroughfare  from  Portland  to  Quebec 
and  makes  the  charms  of  Kineo  and  other 
Moosehead  resorts  not  only  possible  but  con- 
venient to  visitors  who  would  otherwise  pass 
them  by.  Consider  that  these  sums,  large  for  a 
State  like  Maine,  were  appropriated  by  a  legis- 
lature made  up  of  men  who  had  hitherto  seen 
little  or  no  business  for  themselves  in  other 
people's  pleasure,  and  you  will  find  realization 
in  process. 

It  is  time  for  a  forest  reserve.  Maine  could 
make  no  better  investment.  It  should  be 
bought,  owned,  and  controlled  by  the  Common- 
wealth for  the  common  welfare,  for  the  business 
of  its  own  citizens  and  the  pleasure  of  its  guests. 
To  be  sure,  the  real-estate  transaction  might 
involve  the  payment  of  ten  dollars  an  acre  to 
[  220  ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

the  very  men  who  bought  the  same  land  from 
the  State  at  ten  cents  an  acre,  but  it  would  be 
good  business  even  then,  and  the  lesson  worth 
the  money.  At  a  time  when  outside  suggestion 
seems  to  be  worth  something  because  it  is  at 
least  considered,  Maine  can  well  follow  the 
example  of  the  Central  Government  and  of 
other  States  and  establish  a  reserve  that  in 
years  to  come  will  yield  tenfold.  In  view  of  its 
greatest  assets,  their  character  and  close  rela- 
tion to  an  institution  of  this  kind,  no  State 
in  the  Union  could  get  such  large  proportional 
returns.  Four  townships  in  the  wild  forest  and 
lake  region,  with  a  total  area  of  150,000  acres, 
would  be  sufficient.  The  reserve  could  be  used 
for  all  kinds  of  forestry  and  farm  experiment, 
the  propagation  of  game  —  which  should  not 
be  hunted  within  the  limits  —  and  fish.  Its 
direct  money  value  to  all  classes  of  citizens  can- 
not be  overestimated.  If  the  expenditure  of  two 
million  dollars  on  good  roads  is  a  good  invest- 
ment, and  it  is,  why  not  the  expenditure  of  half 
or  three  quarters  of  that  sum  on  a  state  park 

[   221    ] 


The  Latchstring 

which  has  equal  advantages.  Respectfully  and 
seriously  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Wild 
Lands;  hearing  requested. 

Also  most  respectfully  and  most  seriously  re- 
ferred to  the  Committee  of  the  Whole,  with  the 
recommendation  that  the  rules  be  suspended 
and  the  bill  pass  at  once,  the  financial  possibili- 
ties of  Maine  as  a  winter  resort.  Why  hiber- 
nate? In  the  State  there  is  an  establishment 
for  the  comfortable  entertainment  of  half  a 
million  guests.  Why  should  all  this  property 
lie  idle  for  ten  months  in  the  year,  and  all  the 
capital  that  produced  it  remain  inactive  five- 
sixths  of  the  time?  There  are  four  seasons  here. 
Each  has  its  own  distinctive  glory,  and  all  a 
health-laden  atmosphere.  What  could  be  more 
beautiful  than  a  snow-clad  Mount  Desert?  An 
old-fashioned  Maine  winter  is  worth  crossing 
a  continent  or  an  ocean  to  enjoy.  It  has  zest, 
sting,  stimulation,  recuperation,  juniper,  red 
berries,  sleigh-bells,  and  boundless  possibilities 
in  financial  development.  Why  not? 

The  winter  before  this  inconceivable  war 

[   222   ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

broke  out  little  Switzerland,  with  less  than  half 
the  territory  of  Maine,  had  within  her  borders 
500,000  tourists,  as  many  as  Maine  received 
during  the  following  summer,  the  greatest  sea- 
son in  its  history  as  a  national  playground.  In 
the  hotels  of  Lucerne  alone  187,000  were  regis- 
tered. The  Maine  hills  are  not  so  high,  but 
there  are  more  of  them.  There  are  4000  square 
miles  of  lakes  and  small  ponds  here,  and  they 
are  as  sure  to  freeze  to  a  skating,  ice-boating, 
and  horse-racing  thickness  as  Thanksgiving  and 
Christmas  are  sure  to  come.  And  ice-fishing 
galore,  a  growing  sport  full  of  health  and  gentle 
excitement,  especially  on  skates.  And  maple- 
tree  tapping  in  March.  The  wondrous  si- 
lence of  the  first  snowfall  in  the  great  Maine 
woods  is  an  experience  of  Nature  worth  hav- 
ing. We  have  all  the  winter  Switzerland  has, 
and  more. 

Half  of  the  State  is  as  far  north  as  Montreal, 
and  Montreal  has  been  a  winter  resort  for  forty 
years.   Besides,  have  we  not  Peary  for  a  gen- 
eral, all-round  winter  instructor? 
[  223  1 


The  Latchstring 


Times  have  changed,  and,  fortunately,  the 
family  physician  has  changed  with  them.  Ask 
him  the  comparative  restorative  powers  of 
rugged  outdoor  treatment  in  a  crisp,  Northern 
winter,  and  he  will  astonish  you  by  saying  they 
are  not  comparative  at  all,  but  superlative.  The 
chemist  has  become  more  useful  in  externals, 
less  in  internals.  The  common  prescription 
now,  because  it  is  the  best,  is  for  Maine  ozone. 
Get  it  filled  at  headquarters  and  take  in  double 
doses. 

The  comfortable  old  Mansion  House  at 
Poland  Springs,  whose  proprietors  for  more 
than  half  a  century  have  been  leaders  in  the 
development  of  Maine  as  a  resort  State,  has 
made  a  substantial  beginning.  In  a  spirit  of 
enterprise  that  can  be  emulated  with  like  re- 
sults in  almost  any  part  of  northern  New  Eng- 
land, this  hotel  added  to  its  already  generous 
equipment  outdoor  sports  and  other  attractions 
of  the  winter  season  and  let  the  fact  be  known. 
Mr.  Hiram  W.  Ricker  even  went  to  far-off  St. 
Moritz  for  winter  ideas.  He  found  they  could 
[  224  ] 


By  TVay  of  Conclusion 

be  adapted  to  Maine,  not  only  with  profit  to 
Poland  Springs,  but  to  the  great  advantage  of 
the  whole  State.  In  the  last  three  years  the 
winter  business  of  that  hotel  has  increased  more 
than  fifty  per  cent,  and  before  long  it  will  be 
necessary  to  open  the  big  house  in  January  and 
February  to  accommodate  the  growing  number 
of  winter  health  and  pleasure  seekers. 

Mr.  Arthur  G.  Staples,  who  with  his  pen  has 
accomplished  much  for  the  State  of  Maine, 
never  did  anything  more  effective  than  when, 
in  an  address  to  an  astonished  State  Board  of 
Trade,  he  pointed  out  the  tremendous  possibili- 
ties of  Maine  as  a  winter  resort  and  convinced  a 
rather  conservative  body  of  business  men  that 
a  season  hitherto  regarded  by  them  as  a  liabil- 
ity could  be  easily  and  inexpensively  converted 
into  a  great  asset.  Among  many  other  good 
things  he  said:  — 

"The  whole  State  should  be  a  winter  resort. 

But  we  can't  expect  business  as  such  to  do  it  all. 

It  is  not  altogether  a  commercial  proposition. 

The  town  officers  and  the  city  fathers,  from  the 

[225  ] 


The  Latchstring 

sociological  and  civic  side,  must  see  the  point 
also.  I  know  it  may  look  difficult  at  first  to 
popularize  winter  sports,  but  I  do  believe  that 
if  public  ice-rinks  were  established  by  public 
money  and  made  the  scene  of  festivals  and 
games,  there  would  be  a  beginning  in  Maine  of 
public  recognition  of  outdoor  life  that  would 
reconstruct  winter  into  a  season  of  better  busi- 
ness and  fuller  enjoyment. 

"If  there  is  anything  which  the  weaver  of 
fancies  can  say  of  the  Alpine  winter  that  we 
cannot  say  in  truth  of  the  winters  in  Maine,  I 
cannot  discover  it  save  in  the  attitude  of  the 
people  themselves.  Through  pure  publicity, 
they  have  made  the  bob-sleigh  run  at  St.  Moritz 
famous  throughout  the  world.  They  have  done 
all  that  capital  and  brains  and  a  community  of 
interests  can  do  —  and  they  charge  you  well ; 
but  they  cannot  beat  our  winter,  and  they  have 
nothing  to  surpass  the  glories  of  the  hills,  the 
mountains,  and  the  forests  of  our  inland  Maine. 
This  is  the  land  of  all  the  best  of  the  white  gods 
of  winter.  It  is  for  us  to  appreciate  it;  to  foster 
[  226  ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

it;  to  spread  about  the  truth  concerning  its 
health-giving  properties;  to  convert  its  ancient 
liability  and  loss  not  only  into  a  present  asset, 
but  an  increasing  gain;  to  help  it  build  up  and 
invigorate  new  races  of  men  and  women,  who 
shall  stir  and  energize  mankind.  We  must 
learn  to  love  winter,  to  talk  of  its  beauties,  when 
we  are  at  home  or  abroad,  to  describe  truthfully 
its  poetry  and  its  loveliness.  Then,  with  big 
and  beautiful  hotels,  with  civic  sports,  and 
other  increasing  devotion  to  outdoor  life,  we 
shall  see  winter  do  its  proper  share  toward  en- 
riching us  commercially,  as  well  as  physically 
and  spiritually." 

Faith  first.  Works  will  follow.  Eastward  the 
course  of  empire  is  returning.  A  thorough  ap- 
preciation that  this,  too,  is  a  land  of  opportu- 
nity, a  little  more  courage,  the  cultivation  of 
a  reasonable  spirit  of  venture,  and  the  world  is 
ours  the  whole  year  round. 

"The  people  of  Maine  have  inherited  riches 
of  earth,  and  air,  and  water  such  as  belong  to 
no  other  people  under  the  sun,"  said  Dr. 
[  227  ] 


"The  Latchstring 

Dingley  forty  years  ago,  in  a  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  prophecy  which  in  riper  years  and  more 
righteousness  still  flourishes  like  the  palm  tree. 
The  great  inheritance  —  all  of  it  —  is  still 
theirs,  and  accumulating.  The  charm  of  the 
State  —  a  quality  of  such  fineness  that  it  does 
not  come  within  the  limits  of  verbal  descrip- 
tion —  is  as  permanent  as  the  green  hills.  What 
her  people  do  with  it  depends  on  the  degree  of 
stimulation  that  can  be  given  to  belief  and  ef- 
fort. Success  can  only  follow  trial.  Fruition  is 
a  result,  not  a  prospect. 

Her  compliments  to  California.  At  a  time 
when  one  hemisphere  was  wallowing  in  the 
worst  war  in  history,  when  the  other  was  doubt- 
ful and  timid  in  business,  in  two  cities,  one  not 
yet  recovered  from  great  disaster,  this  magnifi- 
cent State  set  up  monuments  of  peaceful  enter- 
prise which  the  whole  world  will  ever  admire. 
The  thought  alone  was  success,  the  undertaking 
a  triumph.  The  pendulum  will  soon  swing  back 
across  the  continent.  The  country  is  looking  to 
Maine  —  coming  to  Maine.  In  the  same  spirit 
[  228  ] 


By  Way  of  Conclusion 

let  us  do  with  what  we  have,  and  do  well.  The 
future  is  secure. 

I  have  enjoyed  writing  this  book.  It  was 
easy  to  begin,  difficult  to  stop.  Because  the 
half  has  not  been  told. 


THE    END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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